animating his darts and arrows: but such personification spun out in a French translation, is mere burlesque : Et la flêche en furie, avide de son sang, Horace says happily, Post equitem sedet atra Cura. Observe how this thought degenerates by being divided, like the former, into a number of minute parts: Un fou rempli d'erreurs, que le trouble accompagne En vain monte à cheval pour tromper son ennui, A poet, in a short and lively expression, may animate his muse, his genius, and even his verse; but to animate his verse, and to address a whole epistle to it, as Boileau doth,* is insupportable. The following passage is not less faulty: Her fate is whisper'd by the gentle breeze, The silver flood, so lately calm, appears Swell'd with new passion, and o'erflows with tears; The winds, and trees, and floods, her death deplore, Let grief or love have the power to animate the winds, the trees, the floods, provided the figure be despatched in a single expression: even in that case, the figure seldom has a good effect; because grief or love of the pastoral kind, are causes rather too faint for so violent an effect as imagining the winds, trees, or floods, to be sensible beings. But when this figure is deliberately spread out, with great regularity and accuracy, through many lines, the reader, instead of relishing it, is struck with its ridiculous appearance. SECT. II.-Apostrophe. THIS figure and the former are derived from the same principle. If, to humour a plaintive passion, we can bestow a momentary sensibility upon an inanimate object, it is not more difficult to bestow a momentary presence upon a sensible being who is absent: Hinc Drepani me portus et illætabilis ora Strike the harp in praise of Bragela, whom I left in the isle of mist, the spouse of my love. Dost thou raise thy fair face from the rock to find the sails of Cuchullin? The sea is rolling far distant, and its white foam shall deceive thee for my sails. Retire, for it is night, my love, and the dark winds sigh in thy hair. Retire to the hall of my feasts, and think of the times that are past; for I will not return till the storm of war is gone. O Connal, speak of wars and arms, and send her from my mind: for lovely with her raven-hair is the white-bosom'd daughter of Sorgian. Fingal, B. 1. Speaking of Fingal absent: Happy are thy people, O Fingal; thine arm shall fight their battles. Thou art the first in their dangers; the wisest in the days of their peace: thou speakest, and thy thousands obey; and armies tremble at the sound of thy steel. Happy are thy people, O Fingal. Ο This figure is sometimes joined with the former : things inanimate, to qualify them for listening to a passionate expostulation, are not only personified, but also conceived to be present; Et si fata Deûm, si mens non læva fuisset, Eneid. ii. 54. Helena. Poor Lord, is't I That chase thee from thy country, and expose Of non-sparing war? And is it I That drive thee from the sportive court, where thou Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark Of smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers, All's well that ends well, Act III. Sc. 2. And let them lift ten thousand swords, said Nathos, with a smile: the sons of car-borne Usnoth will never tremble in danger. Why dost thou roll with all thy foam, thou roaring sea of Ullin? why do ye rustle on your dark wings, ye whistling tempests of the sky? Do ye think, ye storms, that ye keep Nathos on the coast? No; his soul detains him; children of the night! Althos, bring my father's 's arms, &c. Fingal. Whither hast thou fled, O wind, said the King of Morven! Dost thou rustle in the chambers of the south, and pursue the shower in other lands? Why comest not thou to my sails, to the blue face of my seas? The foe is in the land of Morven, and the King is absent. Fingal. Hast thou left thy blue course in heaven, golden-hair'd son of the sky! The west hath opened its gates; the bed of thy repose is there. The waves gather to behold thy beauty: they lift their trembling heads; they see thee lovely in thy sleep; but they shrink away with fear. Rest in thy shadowy cave, O Sun! and let thy return be in joy. Fingal. Daughter of Heaven, fair art thou! the silence of thy face is pleasant. Thou comest forth in loveliness: the stars attend thy blue steps in the east. The clouds rejoice in thy presence, O Moon! and brighten their dark brown sides. Who is like thee in heaven, daughter of the night? The stars are ashamed in thy presence, and turn aside their sparkling eyes. Whither dost thou retire from thy course, when the darkness of thy countenance grows? Hast thou thy hall like Ossian? Dwellest thou in the shadow of grief? Have thy sisters fallen from heaven? and are they who rejoiced with thee at night no more? -Yes, they have fallen, fair light; and often dost thou retire to mourn.But thou thyself shalt, one night, fail; and leave thy blue path in heaven. The stars will then lift their heads: they, who in thy presence were ashamed, will rejoice. Fingal. This figure, like all others, requires an agitation of mind. In plain narrative, as, for example, in giving the genealogy of a family, it has no good effect: -Fauno Picus pater; isque parentem Te, Saturne, refert; tu sanguinis ultimus auctor. Eneid. vii. 48. SECT. III.-Hyperbole. In this figure, by which an object is magnified or diminished beyond truth, we have another effect. of the foregoing principle. An object of an uncommon size, either very great of its kind or very little, strikes us with surprise; and this emotion produces a momentary conviction that the object is greater or less than it is in reality:* the same effect, precisely, attends figurative grandeur or littleness; and hence the hyperbole, which expresses * See Chap. 8. |