[130] Qui Bavium non odit, amet tua carmina, Mævi.
Who hates not Bavius, be he doom'd to love Thy Metre, Mævius!
A keener Satire cannot be conceived; but the Force of it consists in the Sense only; the Words, considered separately, have nothing of that Kind in them. The former, therefore, is the proper Instance of the Invective Style; because in the Style the whole Invective is contained. It may justly be wonder'd that I should fetch Examples of the Style and Thought of Satire, from a Poet endow'd by Nature with the sweetest Disposition, and led by his Subject to a very different Way of Writing: But he had a Genius so adapted to every Thing, that he could write Satire in spite of his own good Nature. These Examples are a sufficient Proof, that if he had turn'd his Thoughts that Way, he would have gain'd the Laurel from all other Competitors; and I must ingenuously confess, that, in my Mind, Juvenal himself has nothing more severe than this Virgilian Acrimony.
The Florid Style is set off with Tropes, Figures, and especially Metaphors. The Use and Abuse of these, I have already spoke of; to avoid Repetition, therefore, I would here only observe, That all Sorts of Poems admit of figurative Expressions, and receive fresh Ornament from them, when the Subject requires them, and Judgment is used in the Choice of them; but that this Style is suitable, in the first Place, to the sublimer Kind of Ode, and, in the next, to the Epic Poem.
A Style, likewise, is said to be easy or strong; short or diffuse; clear or obscure; sweet, soft, and fluent; or rough, and unpleasant. The several Properties of these, to what Subject, and to what Poem each is suitable, may be collected from this Dissertation, and the Examples produced; and are partly so self-evident, that all further Explication or Example would be needless. I only observe, in one Word, that a clear Style is never faulty, an obscure and an uncouth one always so; but that the easy or strong, the short or prolix, the loose or close, the brisk or slow, the sweet and soft, or the rough and harsh, are all of them sometimes proper, sometimes improper, according to the Subject Matter of the Poem they appear in. 'Tis farther to be observ'd, That the rough Style, artfully enrich'd with a few antiquated Words, has a certain Majesty in it, which adds a Grandeur to Tragedy especially, and a Sublimity to the Epic Poem: That this Liberty, however, is to be used with Judgment and Caution, lest it appear dull and stiff, instead of lofty and majestic. On the other Hand, that Elegies, particularly, and some sort of Pastorals, require the sweet and flowing Style, and utterly reject all Asperity: Lastly, That some of the Appellations by which Style is distinguish'd are applied to Thought likewise; as sublime, low, satirical, elegant, &c. and some of them not so: For a brisk or slow Thought, a concise or prolix Thought, &c. are Terms which the Schools are yet Strangers to.
Elegance enters into the Composition of every Style that has any Merit in it, pervades every Part, and is, as it were, the Soul to it. What Elegance is, and wherein it consists, has been already shewn, at the Entrance of this Dissertation.
But tho' every Kind of Poem has a Style peculiar to itself, yet we are not to preserve one even Course of Writing from the Beginning to the End, but to rise or fall, to be sweet or rough, to be concise or to expatiate, &c. according to the Variety of Matter into which our Subject leads us. Virgil, in that Description of Prodigies which I have before cited, sometimes uses the short Diction:
[131] Vox quoque per lucos vulgo exaudita silentes Ingens; & simulacra modis pallentia miris Visa sub obscurum noctis; pecudesque locutæ, Infandum! sistunt amnes; terræque dehiscunt; Et mœstum illacrimat templis ebur; æraque sudant.
And oft in silent Woods were Voices more Than human heard: And Spectres wond'rous pale Seen in the Dusk of Ev'ning: Oxen spoke, (Horrid to tell!) Earth yawn'd, and Streams stood still, In Temples mourning Iv'ry wept; and Brass Sweated.
But in the next Words, where he is to express a great Inundation, he thus breaks out into an Exuberancy of Style: