EXAMPLES.

1. They were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions.

2. I saw their chief, tall as a rock of ice; his spear, the blastod fir; his shield, the rising moon; and he sat on the shore like a cloud of mist on the hill.

NOTE. When hyperbolical language goes beyond all reasonable bounds, it becomes bombast, and is not only ridiculous, but disgusting.

EXAMPLE.

I found her on the floor,

In all the storm of grief, yet beautiful,
Pouring forth tears at such a lavish rate,

That were the world on fire, they might have drowned The wrath of heaven, and quenched the mighty ruin. Nothing could be more extravagantly ridiculous than the above, yet the imagination is thus prone to magnify objects; and this figure is not unfrequently exemplified in common conversation, especially among children and youth. All expressions in the description and comparison of objects, are hyperbolical when they go beyond what is strictly true.

Vision, or Imagery, consists in using the present tense of the verb instead of the past, and thus decribing past events as actually passing before our eyes; or, in representing any object of the imagination as real, and present to the senses.

This figure cannot be introduced to any good effect, without the exercise of strong passion, and under circumstances of deep

QUESTIONS. Give an example? What is the note? In what is this figure too frequently exemplified? What is vision or imagery? What is necessary in order to introduce this figure with good effect?

excitement. The following, from one of Cicero's orations, is an appropriate

EXAMPLE.

I seem to myself to behold this city, the ornament of the earth, the capital of all nations, suddenly involved in one conflagration. I see before me the slaughtered heaps of citizens, lying unburied in the midst of their ruined country. The furious countenance of Cethegus a rises to my view, while, with a savage joy, he is triumphing in your miseries.

8. Personification.

Personification is that figure by which we attribute life and action to inanimate objects.

The language is taken in its literal sense, and the figure lies in the thought. It is prompted by passion, or a strong and lively imagination. All poetry, even in its most humble forms, abounds with this figure. It has three forms :—

1. It consists in ascribing to inanimate objects, some of the qualities of living creatures.

A raging storm.

thirsty earth.

EXAMPLES

A deceitful disease. A cruel disaster. The The merciless ocean. The groaning forest.

2. It consists in representing inanimate objects, as acting like those which have life.

EXAMPLES.

1. The Mountains skipped like rams, and the little Hills, like lambs.

a Cethegus, (Cornelius,) a Roman of the most corrupt and abandoned character; an accomplice in Cataline's conspiracy, and, by order of the senate, was strangled in prison.

QUESTIONS. What is personification? In what does the figure lie? How many forms has it? What is the first? Give an example. What is the second? Give an example.

2. So saying her rash hand, in evil hour

Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked and ate;
Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat,
Sighing, through all her works, gave signs of woe,
That all was lost.

3. It represents inanimate objects, not only as feeling and acting, but as speaking to us, or listening when we address them.

EXAMPLES.

1. I asked the golden Sun, and silver Spheres,
Those bright chronometers of days and years:
They answered," Time is but a meteor glare,
And bids us for eternity prépare."

2. Oh! unexpected stroke, worse than of Death!
Must I leave thee, Paradise! thus leave

Who now shall rear you to the sun, or rank
Your tribes, and water from th' ambrosial fount?
Thee, lastly, nuptial Bower, by me adorned
With what to sight or smell was sweet,

from thee

How shall I part, and whither wander down
Into a lower world, to this obscure

And wild How shall we breathe in other air,
Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits?

9. Apostrophe.

An Apostrophe is an address to some real person either absent or dead, as though present and listening to us; or an address to some object personified.

An apostrophe is nearly allied to personification. It is a figure which abounds with sublimity and feeling. All great

QUESTIONS. What is the third? Give an example. What is an apostrophe ? To what figure is it nearly allied. What is here said of it? ̧

and beautiful objects in nature, such as the sun, a mountain, the ocean, &c., as well as persons, may be apostrophized. The manner of utterance must be governed by the strength of passion indicated by the language.

EXAMPLES.

1. Weep on the rocks of roaring winds, O Maid of Innislore! a Bend thy fair head over the waves, thou fairer than the ghosts of the hills, when it moves in a sunbeam at noon over the silence of Morven.b

2. O Thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers! whence are thy beams, O Sun! thy everlasting light? Thou comest forth in thy awful beauty; the stars hide themselves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks in the western wave. But thou thyself movest above! who can be a companion of thy course? The oaks of the mountains fall; the mountains themselves decay with years; the ocean shrinks and grows again; the moon herself is lost in the heavens; but thou art forever the same, rejoicing in the brightness of thy

course.

3. When the world is dark with tempests, when thunder rolls, and lightning flies, thou lookest in thy beauty from the clouds, and laughest at the storm. But to Ossian thou lookest in vain; for he beholds thy beams no more, whether thy yellow hair floats on the eastern clouds, or thou tremblest at the gates of the west. But thou art, perhaps, like me, for a season; thy years will have an end. Thou shalt sleep in thy clouds, careless of the voice of the morning. Exult then, O Sun! in the strength of thy youth. Age is dark and unlovely; it is like the glimmering light of the moon, when it shines through broken clouds, and the mist is on the hills; when the blast of the north is on the plain, and the traveler shrinks in the midst of his journey.

• Innislore, the name given to the Orkney Islands, by Ossian, a Caledonian bard, who flourished about A. D. 300. b Morven, a province of ancient Caledonia, or Scotland.

10. Climax, or Amplification.

A Climax, or Amplification, consists in a gradual heightening of all the circumstances of any object or action, which we desire to present in a strong light.

EXAMPLES.

1. It is a crime to put a Roman citizen in bonds; it is the height of guilt to scourge him; little less than PARRICIDE to put him to DEATH; what name then shall I give to CRUCIFYING HIM?

2. The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn TEMPLES, the great GLOBE ITSELF,
With all that it INHABITS, shall dissolve,

And like the baseless fabric of a vision

Leave not a wreck behind.

3. We have complained, we have petitioned, we have ENTREATED, we have SUPPLICATED; we have even PROSTRATED ourselves at the foot of the throne, without moving royal clemency.

QUESTION. What is climax, or amplification? Give an ɔxample.