Collier's Dialogues serve two principal Ends, the one to carry on an Argument the more freely and loosely; and the other, which is not the least, to give himself a fat Figure in his own Picture, for he himself is the Man who has always the best of the Dispute.
Well, I can't stand the Force of your Argument:
You are smart, you have brought your self well off.
Thus he conquers his Alphius, and compels him to own, That the Priests are an independant State; and thus Boys build Houses of Cards to blow them down when they have done. What a Parcel of Flowers and Graces might one pick up in his Writings, if it was more a propos, such as Slender Difficulty, Lean Temper, touchy Point, Cheek by Joule, to con over, to be Uppish, Intents and Purposes, to glitter upon the Senses, Enrichments, renverse, Deconcert, bigger Entertainment of the Soul, don't, on't, can't, won't, 'tis, it's, at's, and the frequent Use of Proverbs.
Where there's Life there's Hope.
One Swallow makes no Summer, &c.
The Use of Proverbs is so far from giving Disgust in common Conversation, especially in the Country, that 'tis look'd upon to be Wit as well as Mimickry, Buffoonry, Pun, Quibble, &c. and you would be star'd at if you should object against either of them as the effect of Ignorance or Folly. The Spectator takes Notice that Puns made a considerable Figure on the Banks of Cam, and Proverbs must needs do no less on the Banks of Isis, when so great a Scholar as Edward Llwyd set the Example, two in one Paragraph.
Rome was not built in a Day.
Better late than never.
On laisse aux Discours du Peuple les manieres de s'appliquer en Proverbes. 'Tis for the Vulgar only to express themselves by Proverbs. But what are Proverbs, &c. to Collier's huddling of Metaphors, a Vice in Eloquence which is hardly taken Notice of in English Writings; To be always pouring in Oil, is the Way to overset the Flame and extinguish the Lamp: If you lay a Country constantly under Water, you must spoil the Soil. Here Fire and Water most lovingly agree together to do the same Business. To overset a Flame is a fine Way of speaking, and as easily to be conceiv'd, as to overset a Cockboat or a Wherry. Again, I fancy we shall sift the Gentleman to the Bran, and make him run the Gauntlet before he gets clear. The Bran Gentleman having run the Gauntlet, we will add one Instance more, and have done with his Metaphors; They will glean up the best Thoughts, they will draw of the Spirit of the Argument when the Mine has been work'd by such Hands. The Gleaner, the Chymist, and the Miner, are at once at work for him in the same short Sentence. If the Writer or Reader's Head can be clear under such Operations, it will be a Wonder. The Spectator has a Remark on this Subject, equally pleasant and judicious: Thus I have known a Heroe compar'd to a Thunder-bolt, a Lion, and the Sea, all and each of them proper Metaphors for Impetuosity, Courage, and Force; but by bad Management it hath so happen'd, that the Thunder-bolt hath overflow'd the Banks, the Lion has been darted through the Skie, and the Billows have roll'd not of the Lybian Desart; neither of which is so bad as Collier's burning and drowning the same Thing at the same Time.
The Declamatory Stile, another great Vice in Eloquence, is the Characteristick of these Essays; tho' I question not but it is thought to be the very Cream of the Discourse. If 'tis excuseable any where it is in Country Pulpits, where, if a Parcel of Words are well put together, we should not be too scrupulous about the Sense. Then Commerce must give way to Religion, Baptism sway the Indenture, and the Gospel govern the Exchange. Are not the Gospel, Baptism, and Religion, the Exchange, Indenture, and Commerce, the same Things in the Contrast. I am far from affecting a foreign Word when we have as good a one of our own, much less when we have a better; and Attitude and Contrast may be supplied by Posture and Opposition, if the Reader pleases; out the former was used for Decorum sake, the idea being too gross when in an English Dress. The Author is again declaiming: It may be the Failing of Drunkenness is imperceptible in the single Instance, 'twill rise in the Sum; To go always a little out of the Way makes a strange Mistake upon the progress; A Grain will grew to a Burthen by Addition; To be always dipping an Estate, is the Way to turn Beggar; A Drop that's perpetually pelting Will make a Stone give way. How new, how eloquent is all this, and that which comes after! He is preaching to the Booksellers about selling Arian Books, Sceptical Books, Books of Divorce, Impotence, &c. Whatever they think on't, Atheism and Lewdness is the most fatal Mortality;—The Plague of the Heart the most frightful Distemper—Infection is safer lodged in the Veins, than in the Will—A Man had much better be poyson'd in his Blood, than in his Principle. The Stream is the same still, but as a Boar pisses it comes by Spirts. Again, Are we never to do any Thing without a Majority; If we are govern'd by Numbers, we shall live strangely; If you go to Poll, Sense and Conscience will lose it in most Cases. Of all the Modern Criticks, who have given us Rules, Dr. Felton upon the Classicks is the Author, who seems to have stood most upon his own Legs: Others have learnt much of the French, and have been much blam'd for it by those who have and have not read their Books. Rymer confesses the French began the Art of Criticism among the Moderns: They fell not to it in earnest, says he, in his Preface to Rapin, till the Royal Academy was founded, and Cardinal Richelieu encourag'd and rally'd all the scatter'd Wits under his Banner: Then Malherbe reform'd their ancient licentious Poetry. Malherbe died Seven Years before the Royal Academy was thought of; however he did begin the Reformation of the French Poetry, and was happily follow'd by Voiture, Sarazin, Maynard, Godeau, &c. The Academy have indeed assum'd to themselves the sole Glory of refining the French Tongue, tho' they can by no means engross the Merit of it. Malherbe began it before they had a Being, and several eminent French Authors have written since, who were not of the Academy, as St. Evremont, Menage, &c. But there's something pleasant in the Complements that are paid to it, and the Antiquaries have found out just such another Society in Rome, under the Patronage of Augustus, to refine the Roman Language, which, by the way, had been refined before by Terence, Lucretius, Cicero, Hortensius, and their Contemporaries, at the latter End of the Republick. The Learned Antiquaries go so far as to name the Roman Academicians,
Mecænas,
Pollio,
Plotius, Valgius,
The Two Messala's,
The Two Bibulus's,
Piso, the Father,
Servius, Fulvius,
Tibullus,
Horace.
Ovid perhaps was left out because he was in Exile at Tomos; but why could they not have put in Livy, Propertius, &c. They have given this Academy, the Temple and Library of Apollo, to meet and study in, and it is pretended, that Horace's Epistle to the Piso's was written by Direction of the Academy, and if there had ever been such an Academy at all, one might the sooner have given Credit to it. The French Academy set an Example to other learned and ingenious Men, to make themselves Masters of their own Language, and the Encouragement they met with from Lewis XIV produced an Age of Poets, Orators, and Criticks. The latter have done more towards explaining the Classicks than had been done before from the Augustan Age to their own. They threw Pedantry and Jargon out of their Writings, and render'd them as polite as judicious. Such are the Criticisms of Rapin, Bossu, Segrais, Boileau, Bouhours, and Dacier, who are all read with like Profit and Pleasure; and this is the Reason of the frequent Use of them, and not an Affectation of foreign Phrases, and technical Cant, as is insinuated by such as never read, or never understood them, and by such too as have not only both read and understood them, but have learnt of them all the Reading they have, and yet make use of no other Names than Quintillian, Longinus, Donatus, Eustathius, and the Ancients. This is very common, and I could easily prove it upon those who have charg'd others with Ignorance and Illiterature. The Reading French Authors is inconceivably beneficial to such as do not understand Latin so well as Mr. Dryden, and Greek so well as Mr. Pope: They will learn as much of the Greek History from Ablancourt's Thucydides, and of the Latin from Du Ryer's Livy, as they could from the Originals. And as to the Poets, they had better read Madam Dacier's Homer, and Segrais's Virgil, which they do understand, than the Original Homer and Virgil which they do not. My Lord Roscommon owns of the French,