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.
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