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Apostrophe is a figure so much of the same kind, that it will not require many words. It is an address to a real person; but one who is either absent or dead, as if he were present, and listening to us. It is so much allied to an address to inanimate objects personified, that both these figures are sometimes called Apostrophes. However, the proper Apostrophe is in boldness one degree lower than the address to personified objects; for it certainly requires a less effort of imagination to suppose persons present who are dead or absent, than to animate insensible beings, and direct our discourse to them. Both figures are subject to the same rule of being prompted by passion, in order to render them natural; for both are the language of passion or strong emotions only. Among the poets, Apostrophe is frequent as in Virgil:

..........Pereunt Hypanisque Dymasque

Confixi a sociis; nec te, tua plurima, Pantheu,
Labentem pietas, nec Apollinis insula texit !*

The poems of Ossian are full of the most beautiful instances of this figure" Weep on the rocks of roaring winds, O maid "of Inistore! Bend thy fair head over the waves thou fairer "than the ghost of the hills, when it moves in a sunbeam at "noon over the silence of Morvan! He is fallen! Thy youth "is low; pale beneath the sword of Cuchullin !" Quintilian affords us a very fine example in prose; when in the begin ning of his sixth book, deploring the untimely death of his son, which had happened during the course of the work, he makes a very moving and tender Apostrophe to him. "Nam

quo ille animo, qua medicorum admiratione, mensium octo "valetudinem tulit? ut me in supremis consolatus est? quam "etiam jam deficiens, jamque non noster, ipsum illum alienate " mentis errorem circa solas literas habuit? Tuosne ergo, 0 "meæ spes inanes! labentes oculos, tuum fugientem spiritum "vidi? Tuum corpus frigidum, exangue complexus, animam recipere, auramque communem haurire amplius potui? Tene, "consulari nuper adoptione ad omnium spes honorum patris "admotum, te, avunculo prætori generum destinatum; te, "omnium spe Attica eloquentiæ candidatum, parens superstes

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* Nor Pantheus! thee, thy mitre, nor the bands
Of awful Phœbus sav'd from impious hands.

↑ Fingal, B. I.

PRYDEN

tautum ad pœnas amisi !"* In this passage, Quintilian shews the true genius of an orator, as much as he does elsewhere that of the critic.

For such bold figures of discourse as strong Personifications, addresses to personified objects, and Apostrophes, the glowing imagination of the ancient Oriental nations was particularly fitted. Hence in the sacred scriptures, we find some very remarkable instances: "O thou sword of the Lord! how long "will it be ere thou be quiet? put thyself up into thy scab"bard, rest and be still! How can it be quiet, seeing the Lord "hath given it a charge against Ashkelon, and against the sea"shore? there he hath appointed it." There is one passage in particular, which I must not omit to mention, because it contains a greater assemblage of sublime ideas, of bold and daring figures, than is perhaps any where to be met with. It is in the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah, where the prophet thus describes the fall of the Assyrian empire: "Thou shalt take up "this proverb against the King of Babylon, and say, How hath "the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! The Lord hath "broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the Rulers. "He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke: "he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none "hindereth. The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they "break forth into singing. Yea, the fir-trees rejoice at thee, "and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down, 66 no feller is come up against us. Hell from beneath is moved "for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead "for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth: it hath raised

"With what spirit, and how much to the admiration of the physicians "did he bear throughout eight months his lingering in distress? With what "tender attention did he study, even in the last extremity, to comfort me? "And, when no longer himself, how affecting was it to behold the disordered "efforts of his wandering mind, wholly employed on subjects of literature? "Ah! my frustrated and fallen hopes! Have I then beheld your closing eyes, '' and heard the last groan issue from your lips? After having embraced your "cold and breathless body, how was it in my power to draw the vital air, or "continue to drag a miserable life? When I had just beheld you raised by con"sular adoption to the prospect of all your father's honours, destined to be "son-in-law to your uncle the Prætor, pointed out by general expectation as "the successful candidate for the prize of Attic Eloquence, in this moment of 46 your opening honours, must I lose you for ever, and remain an unhappy "parent, surviving only to suffer woe?"

+ Jer xlvii. 6, 7.

up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they “shall speak, and say unto thee, art thou also become weak as "we? art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought "down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols; the worm is "spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. How art thou "fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how "art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the "nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into "heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I "will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides "of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, "I will be like the Most High. Yet thou shalt be brought "down to hell, to the sides of the pit. They that see thee "shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is "this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms? That made the world as a wilderness, and de"stroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his "prisoners? All the kings of the nations, even all of them lie "in glory, every one in his own house. But thou art cast out "of thy grave, like an abominable branch: and as the raiment "of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go "down to the stones of a pit, as a carcass trodden under "feet." This whole passage is full of sublimity. Every object is animated; a variety of personages are introduced: we hear the Jews, the fir-trees, and cedars of Lebanon, the ghosts of departed kings, the king of Babylon himself, and those who look upon his body, all speaking in their order, and acting their different parts without confusion.

241

LECTURE XVII.

COMPARISON, ANTITHESIS, INTERROGATION,
EXCLAMATION, AND OTHER FIGURES
OF SPEECH.

WE are still engaged in the consideration of figures of speech; which, as they add much to the beauty of style when properly employed, and are, at the same time, liable to be greatly abused, require a careful discussion. As it would be tedious to dwell on all the variety of figurative expressions which rhetoricians have enumerated, I chose to select the capital figures, such as occur most frequently, and make my remarks on these; the principles and rules laid down concerning them, will sufficiently direct us to the use of the rest, either in prose or poetry. Of Metaphor, which is the most common of them all, I treated fully; and in the last Lecture I discoursed of Hyperbole, Personification, and Apostrophe. This Lecture will nearly finish what remains on the head of figures.

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Comparison, or Simile, is what I am to treat of first: a figure frequently employed both by poets and prose writers, for the ornament of composition. In a former Lecture, I explained fully the difference betwixt this and Metaphor. A Metaphor is a Comparison implied, but not expressed as such; as when I say, " Achilles is a Lion," meaning, that he resembles one in courage or strength. A Comparison is, when the resemblance between two objects is expressed in form, and generally pursued more fully than the nature of a Metaphor admits ; as when I say, "The actions of princes are like those great riv"ers, the course of which every one beholds, but their springs "have been seen by few." This slight instance will show, that a happy Comparison is a kind of sparkling ornament, which adds not a little lustre and beauty to discourse; and hence such figures are termed by Ciccro, "Orationis lumina.”

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The pleasure we take in Comparisons is just and natural. We may remark three different sources whence it arises. First, From the pleasure which nature has annexed to that act of the mind by which we compare any two objects together, trace resemblances among those that are different, and differences among those that resemble each other; a pleasure, the final cause of which is, to prompt us to remark and observe, and thereby to make us advance in useful knowledge. This operation of the mind is naturally and universally agreeable; as appears from the delight which even children have in comparing things together, as soon as they are capable of attending to the objects that surround them. Secondly, The pleasure of Comparison arises from the illustration which the Simile employed gives to the principal object; from the clearer view of it which it presents; or the more strong impression of it which it stamps upon the mind: and, thirdly, It arises from the introduction of a new, and commonly a splendid object, associated to the principal one of which we treat; and from the agreeable picture which that object presents to the fancy; new scenes being thereby brought into view, which, without the assistance of this figure, we could not have enjoyed.

All Comparisons whatever may be reduced under two heads, Explaining and Embellishing Comparisons. For when a writer likens the object of which he treats to any other thing, it always is, or at least always should be, with a view either to make us understand that object more distinctly, or to dress it up, and adorn it. All manner of subjects admit of Explaining Comparisons. Let an author be reasoning ever so strictly, or treating the most abstruse point in philosophy, he may very properly introduce a Comparison, merely with a view to make his subject better understood. Of this nature, is the following in Mr. Harris's Hermes, employed to explain a very abstract point, the distinction between the powers of sense and imagin ation in the human mind. "As wax," says he, " would not be "adequate to the purpose of signature, if it had not the power "to retain as well as to receive the impression; the same holds "of the soul, with respect to sense and imagination. Sense is "its receptive power; imagination is retentive. Had it sense "without imagination, it would not be as wax, but as water,

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