What are ten thousand Subjects, such as they?
If I am scorn'd, I'll take my self away.
Thou shalt not wish her thine, thou shalt not dare
To be so impudent as to dispair.
There's not a Star of thine dares stay with thee,
I'll whistle thy tame Fortune after me.
I cannot repeat any more of it: These are Mr. Dryden's Faults, in which, according to the Guardian, there are more Beauties than in the most elaborate Pieces of more correct Writers. I confess it grieves me to mention such Enormities as these are: For no Man can do more justice to Mr. Dryden's fruitful Imagination, and harmonious Versification than my self: But it does not therefore follow, that even Errour in him is more beautiful than Regularity in others.
It I had more Room, and more Leisure, I should have endeavour'd to explain the Difference between the several Ways of Thinking. Some of them I have attempted, and I hope it may stir up a greater Genius, to do in English as Pere Bouhours has done in French, which would introduce a beautiful and just Manner both in Thought and Expression. It would then be known why it is that Archbishop Tillotson and Bishop Sprat are both esteem'd Masters of the English Language; why Sir William Temple, and Sir Roger L'Estrange, the Tatler, and the Spectator, are generally spoken of as fine Writers; though their Manner is as different as their Faces. Every Thing that pleases in Writing is with us, as I have already hinted, resolved into Wit, whether it be in the Thought or the Expression. Nay some, says the Spectator, carry the Notion of Wit so far, as to ascribe it to Puns and Quibbles, and even to external Mimickry, and to look upon a Man as an ingenious Person that can resemble the Tone, Gesture, or Face of another. With such admirable Judges as these, Sir Isaac Newton's Discourse of Fluxions is very witty, as the Machine called the Orrery was said to be very wittily contrived. With these Estcourt, Penkethman, and even Norris are Wits, as the Spaniards take the Apes to be, and that they won't speak because they would not work. I have known two or three Actors who got into Vogue by Grimace only, and acting Parts that had neither Wit nor Sense in them.
Every one of the Kinds of right Thinking has its opposite, as every Virtue has its Vice; and the Sublime especially is apt to be mistaken in the Pomp and Puffiness of Description. Of this Kind is that Passage, where Mr. Eachard describes the Sea-Fight between the English and the Dutch, in the Time of the Rump.
"The Battle grew so fierce and so furious, that there were scarce any Thing to be seen but Masts overturn'd into the Sea, Splinters flying on all Sides, Sails rent and torn in Pieces, Cables and Cordage cut in sunder: How it terrifies one! In one Place a Vessel boarded, and in a Moment the Men chaced off or blown up with the Decks into the Air. Four or Five Hundred Men would not have made a Figure dreadful enough unless the Wooden Decks had gone along with them. And in another was seen a Ship swallow'd up by the Waves with several Hundreds of Men, and the Sea turn'd red with Human Gore, and cover'd with dead Bodies, and floating Parts of scatter'd Ships. What's the Reason that we freeze in the midst of so much Fire? This is what the French call the Cold and the Puerile Stile. Again; All which instead of dismaying the Combatants, serv'd only to excite their Rage, and enflame them to a more cruel and implacable Slaughter; and the continual Outcries of miserable wounded Wretches render'd them but the more bloody minded, and rouz'd them to a more cruel and remorseless Revenge. The rising Coasts on both Sides the Channel were violently shaken with the resounding Thunders of the roaring Guns, and those engag'd seem'd to be involv'd in the Wreck of Nature."
This Fight was over against the Island of Portland, and I really believe the pronouncing of these Words, roaring Guns, resounding Thunders, rising Coasts, Wreck of Nature, among the Rocks under the Light-houses, would have as good an Effect with the Help of Eccho, as a Broadside at Sea, which the Historian assures us at the same Time shook the Hills of England and France. Whence comes it that we read all this without the least Emotion, where there is so much Affectation to move? Are we not so stun'd with the Sound that the Sense is lost in it, and we are no more concern'd than at the Sight of a Storm in a Half-penny Picture? Dryden lets us a little into this Secret in his Preface to Troil. and Cress. He is speaking of the puffy Style, the common Practice of those Writers, who not being able to infuse a natural Passion into the Mind, have made it their Business to ply the Ears, and to stun their Judges by the Noise. A better Judge than Mr. Dryden has directed us in this Matter.
The Words, which in Magnificence abound,
Grow tedious oft, and lose themselves in Sound.
Rosc.
This Way of Writing is much more easy than that which is truly great and sublime, as in Liquors, 'tis easier to give them Ferment and Froth, than Spirit and Purity. There are more Authors, says Dryden, who can make a pompous Description, than who can write with an equal and natural Stile. He adds, that Shakespear himself did not distinguish the blown puffy Stile from true Sublimity; which could not wholly be attributed to the Time, because we meet with the true Sublimity very often in Spencer and Fairfax, who were both Contemporaries with Shakespear, and Spencer much the elder. Two Lines of Sir John Denham's, on a like Subject with that of Echard, fills one with Horrour and Amazement.