it is extremely difficult to navigate. On the contrary, the Reason is very straight and regular, but does not carry vessels of every burden. There is in the Land of Poetry a very obscure forest, where the rays of the sun never enter. It is the Forest of Bombast. The trees are close, spreading, and twined into each other. The forest is so ancient that it has become a sort of sacrilege to prune its trees, and there is no probability that the ground ever will be cleared. A few steps into this forest and we lose our road, without dreaming that we have gone astray. It is full of imperceptible labyrinths, from which no one ever returns. The Reason is lost in this forest. The extensive province of Imitation is very sterile. It produces nothing. The inhabitants are extremely poor, and arc obliged to glean in the richer fields of the neighboring provinces; and some even make fortunes by this beggarly occupation. The Empire of Poetry is very cold toward the north, and consequently this quarter is the most populous. There are the cities of Anagram and Acrostic, with several others of a similar description. Finally, in that sea which bounds the States of Poetry, there is the Island of Satire, surrounded by bitter waves. The salt from the water is very strong and dark-colored. The greater part of the brooks of this island resemble the Nile in this, that their sources are unknown; but it is particularly remarkable that there is not one of them whose waters are fresh. A part of the same sea is called the Archipelago of Trifles. The French term it l'Archipel des Bagatelles, and their voyagers are well acquainted with those islands. Nature seems to have thrown them up in sport, as she did those of the Egean Sea. The principal islands are the Madrigal, the Song, and the Impromptu. No lands can be lighter than those islands, for they float upon the waters.-FONTENELLE. ALLUSION. § 572. ALLUSION, from the Latin ad, and ludere, to play, is that figure by which some word or phrase in a sentence calls to mind something which is not mentioned, by means of some similitude. U u 1. "I was surrounded with difficulties, and possessed no clew by which I could effect my escape." Here the allusion is to Theseus in the Labyrinth of Crete, who made his escape by means of a clew furnished by Ariadne. 2. M. Robin addressed a petition to Louis XIV., requesting to be allowed to retain possession of a small island on the Rhone, of which the following is a translation: "Monarch of France! my little isle Is worthless and unfit for thee; Why look for Laurels from a soil Which scarcely bears the Willow-tree ?" 3. In recommending exercise for the cure of the spleen, Green says, "Fling but a stone, the giant dies!" ANACENOSIS. § 573. ANACENOSIS, from the Greek dvá, and kówvoç, common, is a figure in which the speaker appeals to the judgment of his audience on the point in debate, as if they had feelings common with his own. 1. "Suppose he had wronged you out of your estate, traduced your character, abused your family, and turned them out of your house by violence, how would you have behaved?" 2. "He did oblige me every hour, Could I but faithful be? He stole my heart, could I refuse 3. Suppose, Piso, any one had driven you from your house by violence, how would you have done ?-CICERO. ANADIPLOSIS. § 574. ANADIPLOSIS, from the Greek ává, and dinλóoç, double, is the use of the same word or words in the termination of one clause of a sentence and at the beginning of the next. 1. "He retained his virtues amid all his misfortunes; misfortunes which no prudence could see or prevent." 2. Can Parliament be so dead to their dignity and duty as to give their support to measures thus obtruded and forced upon them; measures, my lords, which have reduced this late flourishing empire to scorn and contempt ?-LORD CHATHAM. 3. "Has he a gust for blood? Blood shall fill his cup." § 575. ANAGRAM, from the Greek ȧvá, and ypáμμa, a letter, is the transposition of the letters of a name, by which a new word is formed. 1. The words CHARLES JAMES STUART can be transposed into Claims Arthur's Seat. 2. Astronomers=Moon starers. 3. Levi vile = evil. = ANAPHORA. § 576. ANAPHORA, from the Greek 'Avapépw, to carry back, is the repetition of a word at the beginning of several clauses of a sentence, which impresses the idea more distinctly on the mind. 1. My daughter! with thy name my song begun; My daughter! with thy name thus much shall end: I see thee not; I hear thee not; but none Can be so rapt in thee; thou art the Friend To whom the shadows of far years extend.-BYRON. 2. A man with no sense of religious duty is he whom the Scriptures describe in so terse but terrific a manner as "living without God in the world." Such a man is out of his proper being, out of the circle of all his duties, out of the circle of all his happiness, and away, far, far away from the purposes of his creation.-DANIEL WEBster. 3. Slave, do thine office! Strike as I struck the foe! Strike as I would Have struck those tyrants! Strike deep as my curse! ANTITHESIS. § 577. ANTITHESIS, Greek 'AvTi0eois, from ȧvrì, and ríoŋji, to place, is the opposition of words and sentiments, a contrast by which each of the contrasted things is rendered more striking. 1. True Honor, though it be a different principle from Relig ion, is that which produces the same effects. The lines of action, though drawn from different parts, terminate in the same point. Religion embraces virtue, as it is enjoined by the laws of God; Honor, as it is graceful and ornamental to human nature. The religious man fears, the man of honor scorns, to do an ill action. The latter considers vice as something that is beneath him; the former, as something that is offensive to the Divine Being: the one, as what is unbecoming; the other, as what is forbidden.-Guardian. 2. A Bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; we make up our minds to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late.-LACON. 3. On parent knees, a naked, new-born child, Weeping thou sat'st, while all around thee smiled; Thou then may'st smile, while all around thee weep. 4. Whether you look up to the top, or down to the bottom; whether you mount with the froth, or sink with the sediment, no rank in this country can support a perfectly degraded name. -Sir PHILIP FRANCIS. 5. To Adam, Paradise was a home; to the good among his descendants, Home is a paradise.-HARE. 6. Wit was originally a general name for all the intellectual powers, meaning the faculty which kens, perceives, knows, understands; it was gradually narrowed in its signification to express merely the resemblance between ideas; and, lastly, to note that resemblance when it occasioned ludicrous surprise. It marries ideas lying wide apart by a sudden jerk of the understanding. Humor originally meant moisture, a signification it metaphorically retains, for it is the very juice of the mind oozing from the brain, and enriching and fertilizing wherever it falls. Wit exists by antipathy, Humor by sympathy. Wit laughs at things; Humor laughs with them. Wit lashes external appearances, or cunningly exaggerates single foibles into character; Humor glides into the heart of its object, looks lovingly on the infirmities it detects, and represents the whole man. Wit is abrupt, darting, scornful, and tosses its analogies in your face; Humor is slow and shy, insinuating its fun into your heart. Wit is negative, analytical, destructive; Humor is creative. The couplets of Pope are witty; but Sancho Panza is a humorous creation. Wit, when earnest, has the earnestness of passion seeking to destroy; Humor has the earnestness of affection, and would lift up what is seemingly low into our charity and love. Wit, bright, rapid, and blasting as the lightning, strikes, and vanishes in an instant; Humor, warm and all-embracing as the sunshine, bathes its objects in a genial and abiding light. Wit implies hatred or contempt of folly and crime, produces its effects by brisk shocks of surprise, uses the whip of scorpions and the branding-iron, stabs, stings, pinches, tortures, goads, teases, corrodes, undermines; Humor implies a sure conception of the beautiful, the majestic, and the true, by whose light it surveys and shapes their opposites. It is a humane influence softening with mirth the rugged inequalities of existence, promoting tolerant views of life, bridging over the spaces which separate the lofty from the lowly, the great from the humble. Old Dr. Fuller's remark, that a negro is "the image of God cut in ebony," is humorous; Horace Smith's, that "the task-master is the image of the devil cut in ivory," is witty. -WHIPPLE. ANTONOMASIA. § 578. ANTONOMASIA, from the Greek 'Avrì ovopa, for a name, is a trope, by which we put a proper name for a common name, or a common name for a proper name; or an office, or profession, or science instead of the true name of a person. If plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven's design, 1. 4. Whose holy dust was scattered long ago. Some village Hamden, that with dauntless breast The little tyrant of his fields withstood; Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood.-Gray |