Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/34

28 poems. And in very deed, there is no other way, by which the true modern poet could read to any purpose the works of such men, as Milton and Shakspeare.

It may be expected, that like other criticks I should next speak of the passions: but as the main end and principal effect of the bathos is to produce tranquillity of mind (and sure it is a better design to promote sleep than madness) we have little to say on this subject. Nor will the short bounds of this discourse allow us to treat at large of the emollients and opiates of poesy; of the cool, and the manner of producing it; or of the methods used by our authors in managing the passions. I shall but transiently remark, that nothing contributes so much to the cool, as the use of wit in expressing passion: the true genius rarely fails of points, conceits, and proper similes on such occasions: this we may term the pathetic epigrammatical, in which even puns are made use of with good success. Hereby our best authors have avoided throwing themselves or their readers into any indecent transports.

But, as it is sometimes needful to excite the passions of our antagonist in the polemick way, the true students in the law have constantly taken their methods from low life, where they observed, that to move anger, use is made of scolding and railing; to move love, of bawdry; to beget favour and friendship, of gross flattery; and to produce fear, of calumniating an adversary with crimes obnoxious to the state. As for shame, it is a silly passion, of which as our authors are incapable themselves, so they would not produce it in others. CHAP.