Then he will talk—good gods! How he will talk.
Which the Spectator speaks of as inexpressibly beautiful for its Simplicity, though I think one can hardly repeat it with a grave Tone; and when I have heard it pronounced on the Stage in a burlesque Way, as it is in The Plot and No Plot; it has never fail'd of a hearty Laugh and Clap. Spectator, No 39. There is a Simplicity in the Words, which out-shines the utmost Pride of Expression; and he attributes it to the Break, good gods! He also informs us, that the Thought is at once natural, soft, passionate, and simple. It would have been well for us, if the learned Critick had told us in what this Thought is simple, in what passionate, in what soft, and in what natural, there being so few Words to express it; and I cannot help thinking, that it is but one fond Rant of an amorous Woman. True it is, Simplicity is not of it self very wordy, but methinks the Break, good gods! has more of the Passionate in it, than of the Simple or the Soft; and may be as well used in Anger as in Love, as well in a Fright as in a Transport. It would have gone a good Way in explaining the different Kinds of Thought, if the judicious Author had distinguished them in this Line; for there are not so many Kinds in one Verse in all Father Bouhour's Maniere de bien penser. I would not be mistaken here, nor be charged with Ostentation, in setting up my Judgement in Opposition to the Spectator's; from whose Writings and Lessons, I have learned more than from all other Authors. I only offer it as an Instance, that the Best of our Criticks do not seem to have gone to the Bottom of this Subject. It never enter'd into the Heads of Writers and Readers in General, that Thought was any Thing but Thought, or Stile any Thing but Stile, or that there were any other Terms or Distinctions for them, but the Good and the Bad, as is already hinted; nor were they at all sensible of my Lord Roscommon's Meaning in these Verses:
Whose incoherent Stile, like sick Men's Dreams,
Varies all Shapes, and mixes all Extreams.
The same may be said of Thought.
I want very much to be informed, whether there is a perfect Agreement of Thought in these several Quotations out of Homer, or how they must be understood so as not to contradict one another. The first Couplet is against Wine:
Inflaming Wine, pernicious to Mankind,
Unnerves the Limbs, and dulls the noble Mind.
The next Couplet is for Wine:
With Thracian Wines recruit thy honour'd Guests,
For happy Counsels flow from sober Feasts.
What follows taken out of the Notes upon Homer is against Wine. What Hector says against Wine in the two first Verses has a great Deal of Truth in it: It is a vulgar Mistake to imagine the Use of Wine, either raises the Spirits or encreases Strength.
The next Words are for Wine: