sente domino, quod suos quisque servos in tali re facere voluisset."-Cic.

136. EXTENUATION says things in such a manner, as to make them appear less than they are in reality.

Ex. See the last example quoted above. Thus also the friends of Verres, called the spoliation and robbery of his province, "Morbum et insaniam." See also, in the fable of the animals, sick of the plague, by La Fontaine, "The ass came in his turn and said, 'I remember one day, when I was carrying cabbages to market, I ate a few leaves: I was perishing with hunger, etc." "

137. EXAGGERATION, on the contrary, represents things in such a manner as to make them appear greater than they are.

loss what name to give by Verres, "Ego quo

Ex. Thus Cicero is at the enormities committed nomine appellem nescio." See also the fable quoted above, "What! eat your master's cabbages, etc."

138. LITOTE says the least possible in order to magnify and exalt the object.

Ex. Thus Livy calls Polybius, "Non spernendus Auctor." Mithridates, offended by Monimia, exclaims, "Est-ce Monime? et suis-je Mithridate?" -Racine.

139. HYPERBOLE (vntep Baλλ) exaggerates its object in order to make it better understood or perceived, or to exalt our conceptions of it.

Ex. "I saw their chief, tall as a rock of ice; his spear the blasted fir; his shield the rising moon; he sat on the shore, like a cloud of mist on the hill."-Ossian.

"Illa intactæ segetis per summa volaret

Gramina, nec teneras cursu læsisset aristas;
Vel mare per medium fluctu suspensa tumenti
Ferret iter, celeres nec tingeret æquor plantas."-Virg.

"He had a fever when he was in Spain;

And when the fit was on him I did mark

How he did shake. 'Tis true, this god did shake;
His coward lips did from their colour fly;

And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world,
Did lose its lustre: I did hear him groan;

Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans
Mark him, and write his speeches in their books,
Alas! it cried-Give me some drink, Titinius,
As a sick girl.”—Shakspeare.

140. The hyperbole is faulty if, in the transports of admiration or passion, the speaker or writer is so carried away as to neglect all adherence to truth or probability, or to fear that he has not said enough to make himself understood.

Ex.-"Par domus est cœlo, sed minor est Domino."

Martial.

"The star that at your birth shone out so bright, It stained the duller sun's meridian light."-Dryden.

"I found her on the floor

Pouring out 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."
Lee.

3. OF FIGURES OF THOUGHT CALCULATED TO EXCITE THE PASSIONS.

141. There are other figures of speech, inspired by passion, which appear especially adapted to awaken

emotion, or to excite the passions:-such are the following:

142. INTERROGATION proposes a question not with the view of obtaining an answer, but to give greater strength or vivacity to the thought.

Ex.-"Quousque tandem abutêre, Catalina, patientiâ nostrâ? Patere tua consilia non sentis? Constrictum jam horum omnium conscientiâ teneri conjurationem tuam non vides?"-Cic.

"Non ego te vidi Damonis, pessime, caprum
Excipere insidiis?”—Virg.

"Are they now competent to declare, on the part of themselves and all posterity, that a free trade to these regions, will never, in the efflux of time, be of any service to the kingdom of Ireland ?"—Grattan.

143. DOUBT expresses a real or supposed uncertainty respecting what to say or how to act.

Ex.-"Quo me miser conferam? An domum? Matrem ne ut miseram lamentantamque videam et abjectam?”. Gracchus quoted by Cic. de orat. III. 56.

"En quid agam? rursus ne procos irrisa priores
Experiar, Nomadumque petam connubia supplex,
Quos ego sum toties dedignata maritos?

Iliacas igitur classes, atque ultima Teucrûm
Jussa sequar."-Virg、

"I really do not know how to ask, or even to expect the attention of the court; I am sure it is no gratification to me, to try your lordship's patience on a subject so completely exhausted."-Erskine.

"'Tis hard to say if greater want of skill
Appears in writing or in judging ill."--Pope.

"In this strange and precarious hour, when the foundations of the kingdoms are undermined, I know not what course of conduct to pursue. If I am silent, I will appear pusillanimous to my friends, and to my enemies; if I lift my voice, I will seem one of the principal demagogues of ruin."

144. SUSPENSION pauses in the midst of the sentence, either to make the mind dwell still longer on what is said, or for the purpose of saying something else quite different from what was anticipated.

Ex.-"Cæsar had his Brutus, Charles I. had his Cromwell, and George III.-may profit by the example."-P. Henry.

"Combien de fois a-t-elle remercié Dieu de deux grandes grâces, l'une de l'avoir fait chretienne; l'autre,

qu' attendez-vous MM.? peut-être d'avoir retabli les affairs du roi son fils? non; c'est de l'avoir faite reine malheureuse."-Bossuet.

145. RETICENCE or CONCEALMENT suddenly interrupts the discourse, and passes on to another idea, so as, however, to leave sufficiently plain what we affect to suppress.

It is employed when we do not choose or are afraid to express our sentiments, or when we wish more to be understood than we are willing to say. Ex.-"Quos ego... sed motos præstat componere fluctus."

Virg.

146. LICENCE (rappηoia) permits offensive truths to be spoken openly.

"Our merchants have been insulted in Portugal, our commerce interdicted;-what did the British lion do? Did he whet his tusks? Did he bristle up and shake his mane?

Did he roar? no, no such thing—the gentle creature wagged his tail for six years at the court of Lisbon, and now we hear from the Delphic oracle on the Treasury bench, that he is wagging his tail in London to Chevalier Pinto, who,” etc.-Curran.

We cannot, however, call the license a figure of speech when it is the simple and candid expression of a frank and ingenuous mind; it becomes so only when its aim is flattery.

Ex-Cicero thus extols the clemency of Cæsar:

"Suscepto bello, Cæsar, gesto etiam ex magnâ parte, nullâ vi coactus, judicio ac voluntate ad ea arma profectus sum, quæ erant sumpta contra te.”—Orat. pro Lig.

"Un dia que el (Hernan Cortes) fué á la presencia de Carlos Quinto para obtener justicia contra las vejaciones que los ministros le hacian esperimentar, le dijo este principe. 'Quien sois?'-'Un hombre,' respondio el, ‘que le - ha dado mas provincias a vuestra majestad que ciudades le dejáron sus antipasados.'"

147. IRONY Conveys a meaning contrary to what the words in themselves literally express.

Ex.-"And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud; for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.”—1 Kings, xviii. 27. "And the Lord God said, Behold the man has become as one of us, to know good and evil.”—Genesis iii. 22.

"Je le declare donc : Quinault est un Virgil.”—Boileau. "Sed stulti sumus, qui Drusum, qui Africanum, Pompeium, nosmetipsos cum P. Clodio conferre audeamus. Tolerabilia fuerunt illa: Clodii mortem æquo animo ferre nemo potest. Luget Senatus; moeret equester ordo; tota civitas conferta seni est," etc.-Cic.