This Way of Writing is much more easy than that which is truly great and sublime, as in Liquors, 'tis easier to give them Ferment and Froth, than Spirit and Purity. _There are more Authors_, says _Dryden_, who can make a _pompous Description, than who can write with an equal and natural Stile_. He adds, that _Shakespear_ himself did not distinguish _the blown puffy Stile from true Sublimity_; which could not wholly be attributed to the Time, because we meet with the true Sublimity very often in _Spencer_ and _Fairfax_, who were both Contemporaries with _Shakespear_, and _Spencer_ much the elder. Two Lines of Sir _John Denham_'s, on a like Subject with that of _Echard_, fills one with Horrour and Amazement. _Tost by a Whirlwind of tempestuous Fire, A Thousand Wretches in the Air expire._ Mr. _Addison_ observes after _Pere Bouhours_, That _it is impossible for any Thought to be beautiful, which is not just, and has not its Foundation in the Nature of Things: That the Basis of all Wit is Truth, and that no Thought can be valuable, of which good Sense is not the Ground-work_. Therefore when Mr. _Echard_ writes his _Oxcellency_ for his _Excellency_, speaking of the Parliament's General the Earl of _Essex_, the _Tyrannical_ Parliament for the _Triennial_ Parliament, the New _Noddle_ for the _New Model_ with respect to the Army, and the like, we are not to be imposed upon by him, and to take it upon his bare Word for Wit. Neither is there any Wit at all in his burlesquing such Phrases as these; _Presence of God_, _Seeking the Lord_, _Call of God_, _Jesus Christ_, &c. Which he also would impose upon us for Witicisms. His Descriptions are not all so lofty and sounding as that of the _Sea-Fight_, particularly when he paints _Oliver Cromwel_, without his Breeches, running away from the Cavaliers in his _Drawers_ only, and then turning back upon them and beating them. Of this Kind is the incomparable Picture of the Aldermen _Gloucester_: Their _Visages were pale, lean, and ugly; their Cloaths strange and unusual; their Voices pert, shrill, and fearless_; Ambassadors _from the godly City of Gloucester_. His Similes are not more elevated, especially that where he compares the _Silent_ and _Victorious_ General Monk to a Cat, and General _Lambert to a Mouse_. He watched him as a Cat watches a Mouse, a singular Proof of his Perfection in Eloquence, which naturally leads us to _Expression_, and I doubt not the Historian thinks a finer Historical Stile than his own is not to be met with.