Her fate is whisper'd by the gentle breeze, Swell'd with new paffion, and o'erflows with tears; The winds, and trees, and floods, her death deplore, Daphne, our grief! our glory! now no more. Pope's Paflorals, iv. 61. Let grief or love have the power to animate the winds, the trees, the floods, provided the figure be dispatched in a fingle expreffion even in that cafe, the figure feldom has a good effect; becaufe grief or love of the paftoral kind, are caufes rather too faint for fo violent an effect as imagining the winds, trees, or floods, to be fenfible beings. But when this figure is deliberately. fpread out with great regularity and accuracy, through many lines, the reader, inflead of relishing it, is ftruck. with its ridiculous appearance. SECT. T His figure and the former are derived from the fame principle. If, to humour a plaintive paffion, we can beftow a momentary fenfibility upon an inanimate object, it is not more difficult to beftow a momentary prefence upon a fenfible being who is abfent: Hinc Drepani me portus et illætabilis ora Accipit. Hic, pelagi tot tempeftatibus actus, Heu! genitorem, omnis curæ cafufque levamen,. Amitto Anchifen: hic me pater optime feffum Deferis, heu! tantis nequicquam erepte periclis. Nec vates Helenus, cum multa horrenda moneret,, Hos mihi prædixit luctus; non dira. Celano. Eneid. iii. 707 Strike the harp in praife of Bragela, whom I left in the-ifle of mitt, the fpoufe of my love. Doft thou raise thy fair face from the rock to find the fails of Cuchullin? The fea is rolling far diftant, and its white foam shall deceive thee for my fails. Retire, for it is night, my love, and the dark winds figh in thy hair. Retire to the hall of my feasts, and think of the times that are paft; for O for I will not return till the ftorm of war is gone. Connal, fpeak of wars and arms, and fend her from my mind; for lovely with her raven hair is the white-bofom'd daughter of Sorglan. Fingal, b. 1. Speaking of Fingal abfent, Happy are thy people, O Fingal, thine arm shall fight their battles. Thou art the firft in their dangers; the wifeft in the days of their peace: thou fpeakeft, and thy thoufands obey; and armies tremble at the found of thy fteel. Happy are thy people, O Fingal. This figure is fometimes joined with the former: things inanimate, to qualify them for liftening to a paffionate expoftulation, are not only perfonified, but also conceived to be present: Et, fi fata Deûm, fi mens non læva fuiffet, Helena. Poor Lord, is't I That chafe thee from thy country, and expose Thofe tender limbs of thine to the event Of none fparing war? And is it I That drive thee from the fportive court, where thou : All's well that ends well, act 3. fc. 4.'. And let them lift ten thousand fwords, faid Nathos with a fmile: the fons of car-borne Ufnoth will never tremble in danger. Why doft thou roll with all thy foam, thou roaring fea of Ullin? why do ye ruttle on your dark wings, ye whiftling tempefts of the fky? Do think, ye forms, that ye keep Nathos on the coaft? ye No; his foul detains him; children of the night! Althos, bring my father's arms, &c. Fingal. Whither haft thou fled, O wind, faid the King of Morven ! Doft thou ruftie in the chambers of the fouth, and pursue the fhower in other lands? Why comeft not thou thou to my fails, to the blue face of my feas? The foe is in the land of Morven, and the King is abfent. Fingal. Haft thou left thy blue courfe in heaven, golden-hair'd fon of the fky! The weft hath open'd its gates; the bed of thy repofe is there. The waves gather to behold thy beauty they lift their trembling heads; they fee thee lovely in thy fleep; but they fhrink away with fear. Reft in thy fhadowy cave, O Sun! and let thy return be in joy. Fingal. Daughter of Heaven, fair art thou! the filence of thy face is pleafant. Thou comeft forth in lovelinefs: the ftars attend thy blue fteps in the eaft. The clouds rejoice in thy prefence, O Moon! and brighten their darkbiown fides. Who is like thee in heaven, daughter of the night? The ftars are afhamed in thy prefence, and turn afide their sparkling eyes. Whither doft thou retire from thy courfe, when the darknefs of thy countenance grows? Halt thou thy hall like Offian? Dwelleft thou in the fhadow of grief? Have thy fifters fallen from heaven? and are they who rejoiced with thee at night, no more? Yes, they have fallen, fair light; and often doft thou retire to mourn. But thou thyself fhalt, one night, fail; and leave thy blue path in heaven. The ftars will then lift their heads: they, who in thy prefence were afhamed, will rejoice. Fingal. This figure, like all others, requires an agitation of mind. In plain narrative, as, for example, in giving he genaology of a family, it has no good effect: Fauno Picus pater; ifque parentem Te, Saturne, refert; tu fanguinis ultimus auctor. Eneid. vii. 48. I SECT. II. HYPERBOLE.. this figure, by which an object is magnified or diminished beyond the truth, we have another effect of the foregoing principle. An object uncommon with refpect to fize, either very great of its kind or very little, rikes us with furprife; and this emotion forces upon the mind a momentary conviction that the object is great ex er or less than it is in reality: the fame effect, precife-ly, attends figurative grandeur or littlenefs; and hence the hyperbole, which expreffes that momentary conviction. A writer, taking advantage of this natural delu. fion, enriches his defcription greatly by the hyperbole : and the reader, even in his coolest moments, relishes that figure, being fenfible that it is the operation of na、 ture upon a warm fancy. It cannot have efcaped obfervation, that a writer is generally more fuccefsful in magnifying by a hyperbole. than in diminishing. The reafon 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 refpect to a diminishing hyperbole, quotes the following ludicrous thought from a comic poet: "He was owner of a bit of ground not larger than a Lacedemonian letter +" But, for the reafon now given, the hyperbole has by far the greater force in magnifying objects; of which take the following examples: 66 For all the land which thou feeft, to thee will I give it, and to thy feed for ever. And I will make thy feed as the dust of the earth: fo that if a man can number the duft of the earth, then shall thy feed alfo be numbered. Genefis xiii. 15. 16, Illa vel intacta fegetis per fumma volaret Eneid. vii. 808. Atque imo barathri ter gurgite vaftos Sorbet in abruptum fluctus, rurfufque fub auras Erigit alternos, et fidera verberat undâ, Æneid. iii. 421.. Horrificis juxta tonat Ætna ruinis, Interdumque atram prorumpit ad æthera nubem, Turbine fumantem piceo et candente favilla : Attollitque globos flammarum, et fidera lambit. Eneid. iii. 571.. See chap. 8. + Chap. 31. of his treatife on the sublime. Speaking of Polyphemus, Sidera. Ipfe arduus, altaque pulfat When he speaks, The air, a charter'd libertine is ftill. Henry V. act 1. sc. 1. Now fhield with fhield, with helmet helmet clos'd, The following may also pass, though ftretched pretty far. Gierufalemme, cant. 6. ft. 46. Quintilian is fenfible that this figure is natural: For," fays he," not contented with truth, we naturally incline to augment or diminish beyond it, and "for that reafon the hyperbole is familiar even among "the vulgar and illiterate" and he adds, very juftly, "That the hyperbole is then proper, when the subject "of itself exceeds the common measure." From these premiffes, one would not expect the following inference, the only reafon he can find for juftifying this figure of fpeech, "Conceditur enim amplius dicere, quia dici quantum eft non poteft: meliufque ultra quam citra "ftat oratio." (We are indulged to fay more than enough, because we cannot fay enough; and it is better to be above than under). In the name of wonder, why this light and childish reafoning, after obferving, that the hyperbole is founded on human nature? I could not refiit this perfonal stroke of criticism; intended not a gainst our author, for no human creature is exempt from L. 8. cap. 6. in fin. error, |