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Page 20
"Profuse of Bliss, and pregnant with Delight,
Eternal Pleasures, in her Presence reign."
After 'Profusion of Bliss,' that is to say, the heap'd Enjoyment
of all Blessings to be wish'd for; how does it cool the
Imagination, to read of being 'pregnant with Delight'? Had she
been brought to Bed of 'Delight,' it had been but a poor
Delivery: For what imports 'Delight,' in Comparison with
'Bliss'? And how much less too is pregnant with Delight,' than
'Delight' in Possession! But then again, after both these, what
cou'd the Author hope to teach us, by adding, that 'Pleasure
reigns in her Presence.' Can there be 'Bliss' without 'Delight'?
Was there ever 'Delight' without 'Pleasure'? It shou'd gradually
have ascended thus, Pleasure, Delight, Bliss; But to turn it the
direct contrary Way, Bliss, Delight, Pleasure, is setting a poor
Meaning upon its Head, and the same thing as to say, Mr. Addison
writ incomparably, finely, nay, and tolerably. A Praise, which, I
dare say, he wou'd have given no Body Thanks for. One wou'd think
there were a kind of Fatality in Liberty, since scarce any Body
can meddle either with the Word or the Thing, but they turn all
topsey turvey.
But I am sliding insensibly into a Theme, that requires rather a
Volume, than a Page or two; I hasten therefore to present you a
Paraphrase on the Six Days Work of the Creator, as described to
us by Moses, in the First Chapter of Genesis, which, you know,
was written, originally, in Verse. It wou'd be difficult, I am
sure, to match the Greatness of that inspired Author's Images,
out of all the noble Writings, which have honour'd Antiquity; and
whose most remarkable Excellencies have been found, in those
Parts of their Works, which they elevated, and made more solemn,
by a Mixture of their Religion. Our Poetry, in so able a Hand as
Yours, might receive heavenly Advantages, from a Practice of like
Nature. But I am of Opinion, that no English Verse, except that,
which we, I think a little improperly, call Pindaric, can allow
the necessary Scope, to so masterless a Subject, as the Creation,
of all others the most copious, and illustrious; and which ought
to be touch'd with most Discretion, and Choice of Circumstances.
Mr. Milton, Mr. Cowley, Sir Richard Blackmore, and now, lately,
a young Gentleman, of a very lively Genius, have severally tried
their Strength in this celestial Bow; Sir Richard may be said
indeed to have shot farthest, but too often beside the Mark; He
will permit me the Liberty of owning my Opinion, that he is too
minute, and particular, and rather labours to oppress us with
every Image he cou'd raise, than to refresh and enliven us, with
the noblest, and most differing. He is also too unmindful of the
Dignity of his Subject, and diminishes it by mean, and
contemptible Metaphors. Speaking of the Skies, he says they were
Spun thin, and wove, on Nature's finest Loom.
Longinus is very angry with Timaeus for saying of Alexander, that
he conquer'd all Asia, in less Time than Isocrates took to write
his Panegyric, "Because, says the Critick, it is a pitiful
Comparison of Alexander the Great with a Schoolmaster." What then
wou'd he have said of Sir Richard's Metaphorical Comparison of
the CREATOR Himself, to a Spinster, and a Weaver? The very Beasts
of Mr. Milton, who kept Moses in his Eye, carry Infinitely more
Majesty, than the Skies of Sir Richard.
The Grassy Clods now calv'd; and half appear'd
The tawny Lyon, pawing to get free
His hinder Parts; then springs, as broke from Bonds,
And, rampant, shakes aloft, his brinded Main!
The heaving Leopard, rising, like the Mole,
In Heaps the crumbling Earth about him threw!
These animated Images, or pictured Meanings of Poetry, are the
forcible Inspirers, which enflame a Reader's Will, and bind down
his Attention. They arise from living Words, as Aristotle calls
them; that is, from Words so finely chosen, and so Justly ranged,
that they call up before a Reader the Spirit of their Sense, in
that very Form, and Action, it impressed upon the Writer. But
when the Idea, which a Poet strives to raise, is in itself
magnificent and striking, the Dawb of Metaphor, or any spumy
Colourings of Rhetoric can but deaden, and efface it.
If Sir Richard had said, concerning the Skies, on any other
Subject but This, of the Creation, that they were 'spun thin, and
wove, on Nature's finest Loom,' the Thought had been so far from
Impropriety, as to have been pleasing, and praise-worthy; But
when the Image he wou'd set before us, is the Maker of Heaven and
Earth, in all the dreadful Majesty of his Omnipotence, producing
at a Word, the noblest Part of the Creation, and 'spreading out
the Heavens as a Curtain'; In this tremendous Exercise of his
Divinity, to compare him to a Weaver, and his Expansion of the
Skies, to the low Mechanism of a 'Loom,' is injudiciously to
diminish an Idea, he pretends to heighten and illustrate.
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