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 geneology of a family, it has no good effect: -Fauno Picus pater: isque parentem

Te, Saturne, refert; tu sanguinis ultimus auctor.

Eneid, vii. 43.

SECTION IIL.

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 that momentary conviction. A writer, taking advantage of this natural delusion, warms his description greatly by the hyperbole: and the reader, even in his coolest moments, relishes the figure, being sensible that it is the operation of nature upon a glowing fancy.

It cannot have escaped observation, that a writer is commonly more successful in magnifying by a

* See Chapter VIII.

hyperbole than in diminishing. The reason is, that a minute object contracts the mind, and fetters its power of imagination; but that the mind, dilated and inflamed with a grand object, moulds objects for its gratification with great facility. Longinus, with respect to diminishing hyperbole, quotes the following ludicrous thought from a comic poet: "He was owner of a bit of ground no "larger than a Lacedemonian letter."* But, for the reason now given, the hyperbole has by far the greater force in magnifying objects; of which take the following examples:

For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth; so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.

Genesis, xiii. 15, 16.

Illa vel intactæ segetis per summa volaret
Gramina: nec teneras cursu læsisset, aristas.

Atque imo barathri ter gurgite vastos
Sorbet in abruptum fluctus, rursusque sub auras
Erigit alternos, et sidera verberat undâ.

Ibid. iii. 421.

Horificis juxta tonant Etna ruinis,

Interdumque atram prorumpit ad æthera nubem,
Turbine fumantem piceo et candente favilla:
Attollitque globos flammarum, et sidera lambit.

Now shield with shield, with helmet helmet clos'd,
To armour armour, lance to lance oppos'd.
Host against host with shadowy squadrons drew,
The sounding darts in iron tempests flew.
Victors and vanquish'd join promiscuous cries,
And shrilling shouts and dying groans arise;
With streaming blood the slipp'ry fields are dy'd,
And slaughter'd heroes swell the dreadful tide.

Iliad, iv. 508.

The following may also pass, though far stretched,

E conjungendo à temerario ardire
Estrema forza, e infaticabil lena
Vien che si impetuoso il ferro gire,
Che ne trema la terra, e'l ciel balena.

Gierusalem, cant. vi. st. 46.

Quintilian* is sensible that this figure is natural: "For," says he, "not contented with truth, "we naturally incline to argument or diminish be"yond it; and for that reason the hyperbole is "familiar even among the vulgar and illiterate :” and he adds, very justly, "That the hyperbole is "then proper, when the subject of itself exceeds "the common measure." From these premises, one would not expect the following inference, the only reason he can find for justifying this figure of speech, "Conceditur enim amplius dicere, quia dici quantum est non potest: meliusque ultra quam citra stat oratio." (We are indulged to say more than enough, because we cannot say enough; and it is better to be above than under.) In the name of wonder, why this childish reasoning, after observing that the hyperbole is founded on human nature? I could not resist this personal stroke of criticism; intended not against our author, for no human creature is exempt from error, but against the blind veneration that is paid to the ancient classic writers, without distinguishing their blemishes from their beauties.

66

* L. VIII. cap. vi, in fin,

Having examined the nature of this figure, and the principle on which it is erected, I proceed, as in the first section, to the rules by which it ought to be governed. And, in the first place, it is a capital fault, to introduce an hyperbole in the description of any thing ordinary or familiar; for in such a case, it is altogether unnatural, being destitute of surprise, its only foundation. Take the following instance, where the subject is extremely familiar, viz. swimming to gain the shore after a shipwreck.

I saw him beat the surges under him,

And ride upon their backs; he trode the water;
Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted
The surge most swoln that met him: his bold head
'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd
Himself with his good arms, in lusty strokes
To th' shore, that o'er his wave-born basis bow'd,
As stooping to relieve him.

Tempest, Act II. Sc. 1.

In the next place, it may be gathered from what is said, that an hyperbole can never suit the tone of any dispiriting passion: sorrow in particular will never prompt such a figure; for which reason the following hyperboles must be condemned as unnatural :

K. Rich. Aumerle, thou weep'st, my tender-hearted e_usin! We'll make foul weather with despised tears:

Our sighs, and they, shall lodge the summer-corn,

And make a dearth in this revolting land.

Richard II. Act III. Sc. 6. ̧

Draw them to Tyber's bank, and weep your tears
Into the channel, till the lowest stream
Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.

Julius Cesar, Act I. Sc. 1.

Thirdly, A writer, if he wished to succeed, ought always to have the reader in his eye: he ought in particular never to venture a bold thought

or expression, till the reader be warned and prepared. For that reason, an hyperbole in the beginning of a work can never be in its place. Example:

Jam pauca aratro jugera regiæ
Moles relinquent.

Horat. Carm. 1. i. ode 15.

The nicest point of all, is to ascertain the natural limits of an hyperbole, beyond which being overstrained it hath a bad effect. Longinus, in the above-cited chapter, with great propriety of thought enters a caveat against an hyperbole of this kind; he compares it to a bow-string, which relaxes by overstraining, and produceth an effect directly opposite to what is intended. To ascertain any precise boundary, would be difficult, if not impracticable. Mine shall be an humbler task, which is, to give a specimen of what I reckon overstrained hyperbole; and I shall be brief upon them, because examples are to be found every where: no fault is more common among writers of inferior rank; and instances are found even among classical writers; witness the following hyperbole, too bold even for an Hotspur.

Hotspur talking of Mortimer:

In single opposition hand to hand,

He did confound the best part of an hour

In changing hardiment with great Glendower.

Three times they breath'd, and three times did they drink,

Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood,

Who then affrighted with their bloody looks,
Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds,
And hid his crisp'd head in the hollow bank,
Blood-stained with these valiant combatants.

Speaking of Henry V.,

First Part, Henry IV. Aet Í. Sc. 4.

England ne'er had a king until his time;
Virtue he had, deserving to command;