That powerful Imagination of 'the Sea, climbing over
the Mountains Tops, and rushing back, upon the Plains, at the
Voice of God's Thunder,' ought certainly to have been express'd
with as much Plainness as possible: And, to demonstrate how ill
the contrary Measure has succeeded, one need only observe how it
looks in Mr. Trapp's Metaphorical Refinement.
"The Ebbing Deluge did its Troops recal,
Drew off its Forces, and disclos'd the Ball,
They, at th' Eternal's Signal march'd away."
Who does not discern, in this Place, what an Injury is done to
the original Image, by the military Metaphor? Recalling the
'Troops' of a Deluge, 'Drawing off its Forces'; and its 'Marching
away, at a Signal,' carry not only a visible Impropriety of
Thought, but are infinitely below the Majesty of That God, who is
so dreadfully represented thundering his Commands to the Ocean;
They are directly the Reverse of that terrible Confusion, and
overwhelming Uproar of Motion, which the Sea, in the Original, is
suppos'd to fall into. The March of an Army is pleasing, orderly,
slow; The Inundation of a Sea, from the Tops of the Mountains,
frightful, wild and tumultuous; Every Justness and Grace of the
original Conception is destroyed by the Metaphor.
In the same Psalm, the Hebrew Poet describing God, says, '....He
maketh the Clouds his Chariots, and walketh on the Wings of the
Wind.
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