he lay monks seem to be but feeble mortals, in comparison
with the gigantick Johnson; who yet, with all his abilities, and the
help of the fraternity, could drive the publication but to forty papers,
which were afterwards collected into a volume, and called, in the title,
a Sequel to the Spectators.

Some years afterwards, 1716 and 1717, he published two volumes of essays
in prose, which can be commended only as they are written for the
highest and noblest purpose, the promotion of religion. Blackmore's
prose is not the prose of a poet; for it is languid, sluggish, and
lifeless; his diction is neither daring nor exact, his flow neither
rapid nor easy, and his periods neither smooth nor strong. His account
of wit, will show with how little clearness he is content to think, and
how little his thoughts are recommended by his language.

"As to its efficient cause, wit owes its production to an extraordinary
and peculiar temperament in the constitution of the possessor of it, in
which is found a concurrence of regular and exalted ferments, and an
affluence of animal spirits, refined and rectified to a great degree of
purity; whence, being endowed with vivacity, brightness, and celerity,
as well in their reflections as direct motions, they become proper
instruments for the sprightly operations of the mind; by which means the
imagination can, with great facility, range the wide field of nature,
contemplate an infinite variety of objects, and, by observing the
similitude and disagreement of their several qualities, single out and
abstract, and then suit and unite, those ideas which will best serve its
purpose. Hence beautiful allusions, surprising metaphors, and admirable
sentiments, are always ready at hand: and while the fancy is full of
images, collected from innumerable objects and their different
qualities, relations, and habitudes, it can at pleasure dress a common
notion in a strange but becoming garb; by which, as before observed, the
same thought will appear a new one, to the great delight and wonder of
the hearer. What we call _genius_ results from this particular happy
complexion in the first formation of the person that enjoys it, and is
nature's gift, but diversified by various specifick characters and
limitations, as its active fire is blended and allayed by different
proportions of phlegm, or reduced and regulated by the contrast of
opposite ferments. Therefore, as there happens in the composition of a
facetious