Cicero recommendeth the former of these: "Quid est tarn furiosum vel
tragicum quam verborum sonitus inanis, nulla subjecta sententia neque
scientia." What can be so proper for tragedy as a set of big sounding
words, so contrived together as to convey no meaning? which I shall
one day or other prove to be the sublime of Longinus. Ovid declareth
absolutely for the latter inn:

Omne genus scripti gravitate tragoedia vincit.

Tragedy hath, of all writings, the greatest share in the bathos; which
is the profound of Scriblerus.

I shall not presume to determine which of these two stiles be properer
for tragedy. It sufficeth, that our author excelleth in both. He is
very rarely within sight through the whole play, either rising higher
than the eye of your understanding can soar, or sinking lower than it
careth to stoop. But here it may perhaps be observed that I have given
more frequent instances of authors who have imitated him in the
sublime than in the contrary. To which I answer, first, Bombast being
properly a redundancy of genius, instances of this nature occur in
poets whose names do more honour to our author than the writers in the
doggrel, which proceeds from a cool, calm, weighty way of
thinking. Instances whereof are most frequently to be found in authors
of a lower class. Secondly, That the works of such authors are
difficultly found at all. Thirdly, That it is a very hard task to read
them, in order to extract these flowers from them. And lastly, it is
very difficult to transplant them at all; they being like some flowers
of a very nice nature, which will flourish in no soil but their own:
for it is easy to transcribe a thought, but not the want of one. The