Lady Eafy. My dear, I am afraid you have provoked her a little too far.

Sir Charles. O! Not at all. You fhall fee, I'll fweeten her, and fhe'll cool like a dish of tea.

Ibid.

CHAP.

CHA P. XX.

54

T

FIGURE S.

HE reader must not expect to find here a complete lift of the different tropes and figures that have been

carefully noted by ancient critics and grammarians. Tropes and figures have indeed been multiplied with fo little reserve, as to make it no eafy matter to diftinguish them from plain language. A discovery almost accidental, made me think of giving them a place in this work: I found that the most important of them depend on principles formerly explained; and I was glad of an opportunity to show the extenfive influence of these principles. Confining myself therefore to figures that anfwer this purpose, I am luckily freed from much trash; without dropping, so far as I remember, any figure that merits a proper

name.

t

name. And I begin with Profopopœia or perfonification, which is jufty intitled to the first place.

SECT.

I.

PERSONIFICATION.

TH

His figure, which gives life to things inanimate, is fo bold a delufion as to require, one should imagine, very peculiar circumstances for operating the effect. And yet, in the language of poetry, we find variety of expreffions, which, though commonly reduced to this figure, are used without ceremony or any fort of preparation. I give, for example, the following expreffions. Thirsty ground, hungry church-yard, furious dart, angry ocean. The epithets here, in their proper meaning, are attributes of fenfible beings. What is the effect of fuch epithets, when apply'd to things inanimate? Do they raise in the mind of the reader a perception of fenfibility? Do they make

make him conceive the ground, the church-yard, the dart, the ocean, to be endued with animal functions? This is a curious inquiry; and whether fo or not, it cannot be declined in handling the present subject.

One thing is certain, that the mind is prone to bestow fenfibility upon things inanimate, where that violent effect is neceffary to gratify paffion. This is one instance, among many, of the power of paffion to adjuft our opinions and belief to its gratification*. I give the following examples. Antony, mourning over the body of Cafar, murdered in the fenate-house, vents his paffion in the following words.

Antony. O pardon me, thou bleeding piece of

earth,

That I am meek and gentle with these butchers. Thou art the ruins of the noblest man

That ever lived in the tide of times.

Julius Cæfar, at 3. Sc. 4.

Here Antony must have been impreffed with fome fort of notion, that the body of

Chap. 2. part 5.

Cæfar

Cæfar was liftening to him, without which the speech would be foolish and abfurd. Nor will it appear ftrange, after what is faid in the chapter above cited, that passion should have fuch power over the mind of man. Another example of the fame kind is, where the earth, as a common mother, is animated to give refuge against a father's unkindness.

Almeria. O Earth, behold, I kneel upon thy
bofom,

And bend my flowing eyes to ftream upon
Thy face, imploring thee that thou wilt yield;
Open thy bowels of compaffion, take
Into thy womb the laft and most forlorn
Of all thy race. Hear me thou, common parent;
I have no parent elfe.

ther,

Be thou a mo

And step between me and the curfe of him,
Who was who was,, but is no more a father;
But brands my innocence with horrid crimes;
And for the tender names of child and daughter,
Now calls me murderer and parricide.

Mourning Bride, act. 4. Sc. 7.

Plaintive paffions are extremely folicitous for vent. A foliloquy commonly answers

the