mean, and quintessence of all virtues, be deemed so offensive in this art? or coolness or mediocrity be so amiable a quality in a man, and so detestable in a poet?
However, far be it from me to compare these writers with those great spirits, who are born with a vivacité de pesanteur, or (as an English author calls it) an "alacrity of sinking[1];" and who by strength of nature alone can excel. All I mean, is, to evince the necessity of rules to these lesser geniuses, as well as the usefulness of them to the greater.
CHAP. IV.
That there is an art of the bathos, or profund.
WE come now to prove, that there is an art of sinking in poetry. Is there not an architecture of vaults and cellars, as well as of lofty domes and pyramids? Is there not as much skill and labour in making ditches, as in raising mounts? Is there not an art of diving as well as of flying? and will any sober practitioner affirm, that a diving engine is not of singular use in making him longwinded, assisting his descent, and furnishing him with more ingenious means of keeping under water?
If we search the authors of antiquity, we shall find as few to have been distinguished in the true profund, as in the true sublime. And the very
- ↑ Spoken by Falstaff of himself in Shakspeare's Merry Wives of Windsor.
