ties. There
seems to have been a Necessity, that they shou'd be noble, as
well as natural; and yet, if too much rais'd, they wou'd endanger
an Extinction of the Charms, which they were design'd to
illustrate. That powerful Imagination of 'the Sea, climbing over
the Mountains Tops, and rushing back, upon the Plains, at the
Voice of God's Thunder,' ought certainly to have been express'd
with as much Plainness as possible: And, to demonstrate how ill
the contrary Measure has succeeded, one need only observe how it
looks in Mr. Trapp's Metaphorical Refinement.

"The Ebbing Deluge did its Troops recal,
Drew off its Forces, and disclos'd the Ball,
They, at th' Eternal's Signal march'd away."

Who does not discern, in this Place, what an Injury is done to
the original Image, by the military Metaphor? Recalling the
'Troops' of a Deluge, 'Drawing off its Forces'; and its 'Marching
away, at a Signal,' carry not only a visible Impropriety of
Thought, but are infinitely below the Majesty of That God, who is
so dreadfully represented thundering his Commands to the Ocean;
They are directly the Reverse of that terrible Confusion, and
overwhelming Uproar of Motion, which the Sea, in the Original, is
suppos'd to fall into. The March of an Army is pleasing, orderly,
slow; The Inundation of a Sea, from the Tops of the Mountains,
frightful, wild and tumultuous; Every Justness and Grace of the
original Conception is destroyed by the Metaphor.

In the same Psalm, the Hebrew Poet describing God, says, '....He
maketh the Clouds his Chariots, and walketh on the Wings of the
Wind.' Making the 'Clouds his Chariots,' is a strong and lively
Thought; But That of 'walking on the Wings of the Wind,' is a
Sublimity, that frightens, astonishes, and ravishes the Mind of a
Reader, who conceives it, as he shou'd do. The Judgement of the
Poet in this Place, is discernable in three different
Particulars; The Thought is in itself highly noble, and elevated;
To move at all upon the Wind, carries with it an Image of much
Majesty and Terror; But this natural Grandeur he first encreas'd
by the Word 'Wings,' which represents the Motion, as not only on
the Winds, but on the Winds in their utmost Violence, and
Rapidity of Agitation. But then at last, comes that finishing
Sublimity, which attends the Word 'walks'! The Poet is not
satisfied to represent God, as riding on the Winds; nor even as
riding on them in a Tempest; He therefore tells u