It is a rhapsody or a characteristical essay, an affemblage calculated to enhance and diverfify convivial feftivity. But you must understand, that I totally anti-rhapfodize Ashley.

CRITICK.

What then! you don't retail your characters in fmall quantities, as Ashley his punch, pro bono publico? We have them wholesale. But there are many of that name, and I should rather imagine, as 'tis a rhapsody, you mean my Lord Shaftsbury.

J ――N.

You arread me aright. And, indeed, this * luxuriant efflorefcence of my wit would have been utterly inexplicable to any but one of your fagacity of conjecture, acutenefs of comprehenfion, and facility of penetration t. You are one of thofe gigantick

* Ram. No. 141.

This is quite in Lexiphanes's ftyle. He is mighty fond of ending a fentence with three phrafes of this fort, for the most part equally fuperfluous

and

tick and ftupendous intelligences who grafp a system by intuition*.

CRITICK.

Well then, give us a fample of your work, that I may not be altogether deprived of fo great a feaft, for I promise myself it will be as good as a cup of Nectart.

and infignificant. When he hath done this, no doubt he thinks he hath rounded off the period well, and hath added fomething to the harmony of its cadence Ram. No. 208. Innumerable examples of this kind are to be met with in his writings. One I found in the very paragraph whence I took the laft quotation, Colloquial barbarifms, licentious idioms, and irregular combinations, Ram, 208. Another I met with, as I juft now caft my eye on the first number of his third volume. The prejudice of faction, the ftratagem of intrigue, and the fervility of adulation. Ram. No. 106. Thefe may very properly be called Triads. But fometimes, and when he is difpofed to be more eloquent than common, he mounts it up to a Quaternion, of which there are likewife many examples in his Ramblers.

* Ram. No. 108. If one could fufpect fuch an original genius as Lexiphanes of being a plagiary, he hath borrowed grasp a system by intuition, from king Phyz, in the Rehearfal, who grafps a form with the eye of reafon. Akinfide, our poetical, or rather blank-verfe Lexiphanes, has an expreffion of much the fame nature,

When defpair fhall grafp

His agonizing bofom.

Pleaf. of Imag. b. ii. v. 491.

+ Almoft literal from Lucian.

B 3

JN.

Deject then exaggeratory obloquy below the horizon of your profpects, without the fervility of adulation afford opennefs of ears, fedulity of thought, and stability of attention §. But above all || expulfe hereditary aggregates and agglomerated afperities which may obumbrate your intellectual luminaries with the clouds of obfcurity, or obthurate the porches of your intelligence with the adfcititious excrement of critical malevolence.

CRITICK.

Begin boldly, my good friend, there are neither agglomerated afperities nor hereditary aggregates about me *

Confider well how I have conglomerated this atchievement of erudition, the infinu

+ Raffelas.

↑ Ram. No. 2. § Here's another Triad more Lexiphanico.

Gordon's Tacitus.

* In the next place anfwering this, in the original, Lucian tells Lexiphanes, that he has no vermin about him, neither lice nor fleas; a play upon words which it was impoffible to preferve in the copy.

ation of its exordial fentences*, the felection of its diction, and refplendency of its fentiment.

CRITICK.

It must be all that, if yours. But I pray you begint.

J --N.

I shall inchoate with one of its moft delicious morfels of eloquence, and shall at

Exordial verfes. Ram. No. 158.

+ What goes before is a pretty close copy of Lucian, the fame conceits and playing upon words as near as the different turn of the two languages would allow. For inftance, Lexiphanes tells Lucian, that he antifympofiazes Arifto, which was Plato's original name, but by which he was little known. In the fame manner Jn tells the Critick, who, in this dialogue acts the part of Lucian, that he anti-rhapfodizes Afhley, a name at least never used when one fpeaks of my Lord Shaftsbury. Lucian's Lexiphanes is a pert conceited fop, whereas mine, like his living original, is a grave folemn affected pedant and coxcomb. Lucian's Sympofium, as far as we can now know of the matter, is an original. But my Rhapfody is moftly taken from the Ramblers, with fome few quotations and parodies from the Elements of Criticifm, Night-Thoughts, Pleafures of Imagination, Centaur not Fabulous, and Warton's Effay on Pope. Lucian has jumbled together a parcel of the ftrangeft incoherent ftuff and nonfenfe that can well be imagined. I hope I have equall'd him in this point, however fhort I may have fallen in other articles.

the fame time be curt*. Perpend†, and receive my fayings with a stedfast ear †. But I obfecrate that in the interim you would, by a proper feceffion, facilitate my enjoyment of the light, whilft I, by the fortuitous liquefaction of spectacular lenses, and their concordant adaptation to my poral regions, meliorate and prolong its fruition §.

"After our poft-meridional refection, rejoined Hypertatus, we will regale with a fupernumerary compotation of convivial

* Elements of Criticism. Piftol in Shakespear.

Pleaf. of Imag. B. 2. 1. 306.

'Tis fuppofed that in this fentence Lexiphanes means no more than that the critic fhould step afide while he puts on his fpectacles. For fome of the hard words, and quaint phrafes, confult Rambler, No. 9.

And now Lexiphanes begins to read his Rhapfody, conceived in the following words: After our postmeridional refection, rejoined Hypertatus, &c. and continues reading till interrupted by the critic. The fragment here given, without either beginning or ending, is fuppofed to be only a fmall part of a larger work; for Mr. Jn tells us, he inchoates with one of its most delicious morfels of eloquence. Lucian begins and ends his Sympofium in the fame abrupt manner, and though it be in itself a matter of perfect indifference, I thought it better to follow the example of fo great an original.

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