"The Battle grew so fierce and so furious, that there were scarce any Thing to be seen but Masts _overturn'd_ into the Sea, _Splinters_ flying on all Sides, _Sails_ rent and torn in Pieces, Cables and _Cordage_ cut in sunder: _How it terrifies one!_ In one Place a _Vessel_ boarded, and in a Moment the Men chaced off or blown up with the Decks into the Air. _Four or Five Hundred Men would not have made a Figure dreadful enough unless the Wooden Decks had gone along with them._ And in another was seen a Ship swallow'd up by the Waves with several Hundreds of Men, and the Sea turn'd red with Human Gore, and cover'd with dead Bodies, and floating Parts of scatter'd Ships. _What's the Reason that we freeze in the midst of so much_ Fire? _This is what the_ French _call the Cold and the Puerile Stile._ Again; All which instead of dismaying the Combatants, serv'd only to excite their Rage, and enflame them to a more cruel and implacable Slaughter; and the continual Outcries of miserable wounded Wretches render'd them but the more bloody minded, and rouz'd them to a more cruel and remorseless Revenge. The rising Coasts on both Sides the Channel were violently shaken with the resounding Thunders of the roaring Guns, and those engag'd seem'd to be involv'd in the Wreck of Nature." This Fight was over against the Island of _Portland_, and I really believe the pronouncing of these Words, _roaring Guns_, _resounding Thunders_, _rising Coasts_, _Wreck of Nature_, among the Rocks under the Light-houses, would have as good an Effect with the Help of Eccho, as a Broadside at Sea, which the Historian assures us at the same Time shook the Hills of _England_ and _France_. Whence comes it that we read all this without the least Emotion, where there is so much Affectation to move? Are we not so stun'd with the Sound that the Sense is lost in it, and we are no more concern'd than at the Sight of a Storm in a Half-penny Picture? _Dryden_ lets us a little into this Secret in his _Preface_ to _Troil._ and _Cress._ He is speaking of the puffy Style, _the common Practice of those Writers, who not being able to infuse a natural Passion into the Mind, have made it their Business to ply the Ears, and to stun their Judges by the Noise_. A better Judge than Mr. _Dryden_ has directed us in this Matter. _The Words, which in Magnificence abound, Grow tedious oft, and lose themselves in Sound._ Rosc.