Falstaff, speaking to his page:

I do here walk before thee like a sow that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one.-Second Part Henry VI. Act I. Sc. 4.

I think he is not a pick-purse, nor a horse-stealer; but for his verity in love, I do think him as concave as a covered goblet, or a worm-eaten nut.

As You Like It, Act III. Sc. 19.

This sword a dagger had his page,

That was but little for his age;
And therefore waited on him so,

As dwarfs upon knights-errant do.-Hudibras, canto i.

Description of Hubibras's horse:

He was well stay'd, and in his gait
Preserved a grave majestic state.
At spur or switch no more he skipt,
Or mended pace than Spaniard whipt:
And yet so fiery, he would bound
As if he grieved to touch the ground:
That Caesar's horse, who, as famie goes,
Had corns upon his feet and toes,
Was not by half so tender hooft,
Nor trod upon the ground so soft.

And as that beast would kneel and stoop,

(Some write) to take his rider up;

So Hudibras his ('tis well known)

Would often do to set him down.-Canto i.

The sun had long since in the lap

Of Thetis taken out his nap;

And, like a lobster boil'd, the morn

From black to red began to turn.-Part II. canto it.

Books, like men their authors, have but one way of coming into the world, but there are ten thousand to go out of it, and return no more.

Tale of a Tub.

And in this the world may perceive the difference between the integrity of a generous author, and that of a common friend. The latter is observed to adhere close in prosperity; but, on the decline of fortune, to drop suddenly off: whereas the generous author, just on the contrary, finds his hero on the dunghill, from thence by gradual steps raises him to a throne, and then immediately withdraws, expecting not so much as thanks for his pains.

Tale of a Tub.

The most accomplished way of using books at present is, to serve them as some do lords, learn their titles, and then brag of their acquaintance.

Clubs, diamonds, hearts, in wild disorder seen,
With throngs promiscuous strow the level green.
Thus when dispersed a routed army runs,

Of Asia's troops, and Afric's sable sons,
With like confusion, different nations fly.
Of various habit, and of various dye,

The pierced battalions disunited, fall

Tale of a Tub

In heaps on heaps; one fate o'erwhelms them all.

Rape of the Lock, canto iii.

He does not consider that sincerity in love is as much out of fashion as sweet snuff; nobody takes it now.-Careless Husband.

509. Mirthful comparisona.

CHAPTER XX.

FIGURES.

THE endless variety of expressions brought under the head of tropes and figures by ancient critics and grammarians, makes it evident that they had no precise criterion for distinguishing tropes and figures from plain language. It was accordingly my opinion that little could be made of them in the way of rational criticism; till discovering, by a sort of accident, that many of them depend on principles formerly explained, I gladly embrace the opportunity to show the influence of these principles where it would be the least expected.

SECTION I.

Personification.

510. THE bestowing sensibility and voluntary motion upon things inanimate, is so bold a figure as to require, one should imagine, very peculiar circumstances for operating the delusion; and yet, n the language of poetry, we find variety of expressions, which, though commonly reduced to that figure, are used without ceremony, or any sort of preparation; as, for example, thirsty ground, hungry church-yard, furious dart, angry ocean. These epithets, in their proper meaning, are attributes of sensible beings: what is their meaning when applied to things inanimate? do they make us conceive the ground, the church-yard, the dart, the ocean, to be endued with animal functions? This is a curious inquiry; and whether so or not, it cannot be declined in handling the present subject.

The mind, agitated by certain passions, is prone to bestow sensi bility upon things inanimate. This is an additional instance of the influence of passion upon our opinions and belief. (Chapter ii. part v.) I give examples. Antony, mourning over the body of Cæsar murdered in the senate-house, vents his passion 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 time.-Julius Cæsar, Act III. Sc. 4. Here Antony must have been impressed with a notion that the body of Cesar was listening to him, without which the speech would be foolish and absurd. Nor will it appear strange, considering what is said in the chapter above cited, that passion should have such power

over the mind of man. In another example of the zame kind, the earth, as a common mother, is animated to give refuge against a father's unkindness:

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

And bend my flowing eyes to stream upon

Thy face, imploring thee that thou wilt yield!
Open thy bowels of compassion, take

Into thy womb the last and most forlorn

Of all thy race. Hear me, thou common parent;
-I have no parent else.Be thou a mother,
And step between me and the curse 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 IV. Sc. 7. Plaintive passions are extremely solicitous for vent; and a solilo quy commonly answers the purpose; but when such passion becomes excessive, it cannot be gratified but by sympathy from others; and if denied that consolation in a natural way, it will convert even things inanimate into sympathizing beings. Thus Philoctetes complains to the rocks and promontories of the isle of Lemnos (Philoctetes of Sophocles, Act iv. Sc. 2); and Alcestes dying, invokes the sun, the light of day, the clouds, the earth, her husband's palace, &c. (Alcestes of Euripides, Act ii. Sc. 1.) Moschus, lamenting the death of Bion, conceives that the birds, the fountains, the trees, lament with him. The shepherd, who in Virgil bewails the death of Daphnis, expresseth himself thus:

Again:

Daphni, tuum Poenos etiam ingemuisse leones

Interitum, montesque feri sylvæque loquuntur.-Eclogue v. 27

Illum etiam lauri, illum etiam flevere nyrice.
Pinifer illum etiam sola sub rupe jacentem

Manalus, et gelidi fleverunt saxa Lycei.-Eclogue x. 13.

511. That such personification is derived from nature, will not admit the least remaining doubt, after finding it in poems of the darkest ages and remotest countries. No figure is more frequent in Üssian's works; for example:

The battle is over, said the king, and I behold the blood of my friends. Sad is the heath of Lena, and mournful the oaks of Cromla.

Again:

The sword of Gaul trembles at his side, and longs to glitter in his hand. King Richard having got intelligence of Bolingbroke's invasion says, upon landing in England from his Irish expedition, in a mix ture of joy and resentment,

510. Boldness of the figure of personification. Expressions implying that figure, in con mon use. When we are disposed to use this figure.-Antony over the body of Cavar.— Earth addressed as a mother.-Plaintive passions, how expressed. Illustrations.

-I weep for joy

To stand upon my kingdom once again.
Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,
Though rebels wound thee with their horses' hoofs.
As a long-parted mother with her child

Plays fondly with her tears, and smiles in meeting;
So weeping, smiling, greet 1 thee, my earth,
And do thee favor with my royal hands.
Feed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth,
Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense:
But let thy spiders that suck up thy venom,
And heavy-gaited toads lie in their way;
Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet,
Which with usurping steps do trample thee.
Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies;

And, when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,
Guard it, I pr'ythee, with a lurking adder;
Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch
Throw death upon thy sovereign's enemies.
Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords;
This earth shall have a feeling; and these stones
Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king
Shall falter under foul rebellious arms.

Richard II. Act III. So. 2.

After a long voyage it was customary among the ancients to salute the natal soil. A long voyage being of old a greater enterprise than at present, the safe return to one's country after much fatigue and danger, was a delightful circumstance; and it was natural to give the natal soil a temporary life, in order to sympathize with the traveller. See an example, Agamemnon of Eschylus, Act III. in the beginning. Regret for leaving a place one has been accustomed to, has the same effect (Philoctetes of Sophocles, at the close).

Terror produceth the same effect; it is communicated in thought to every thing around, even to things inanimate. Speaking of Polyphemus:

Clamorem immensum tollit, quo pontus et omnes
Intremuere undæ, penitusque exterrita tellus

Italiæ.

-As when old Ocean roars,

Eneid, iii. 672.

And heaves huge surges to the trembling shores.

Iliad, ii. 249.

Go, yiew the settling sea. The stormy wind is laid; but the billows stil tremble on the deep, and seem to fear the blast.

Fingal.

Racine, in the tragedy of Phedra, describing the sea-monster that destroyed Hippolytus, conceives the sea itself to be struck with terror as well as the spectators:

Le flot qui l'apporta recule épouvanté.

A man also naturally communicates his joy to all objects around. animate or inanimate:

As when to them who sail

Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambic, off at sea northeast winds blow

Sabean o lor from the spicy shore

Of Araby the blest; with such delay

Well pleased, they slack their course, and many a league,
Cheer'd with the grateful smell, old Ocean smiles.
Paradise Lost, b. iv.

512. I have been profuse of examples, to show what power many passions have to animate their objects. In all the foregoing examples, the personification, if I mistake not, is so complete as to afford conviction, momentary indeed, of life and intelligence. But it is evident, from numberless instances, that personification is not always so complete: it is a common figure in descriptive poetry, understood to be the language of the writer, and not of the persons he describes: in this case it seldom or never comes up to conviction, even momentary, of life and intelligence. I give the following examples:

First in his east the glorious lamp was seen
(Regent of day, and all th' horizon round
Invested with bright rays); jocund to run

His longitude through heaven's high road: the gray
Dawn and the Pleiades before him danced,

Shedding sweet influence. Less bright the moon,
But opposite, in levell'd west was set

His mirror, with full face borrowing her light
From him; for other light she needed none.

Paradise Lost, b. vii. 1. 870.*

Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops.

Romeo and Juliet, Act III. Sc. 7

But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill.

Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 1.

It may, I presume, be taken for granted, that in the foregoing in. stances, the personification, either with the poet or his reader, amounts not to a conviction of intelligence: that the sun, the moon, the day, the morn, are not here understood to be sensible beings. What then is the nature of this personification? I think it must be referred to the imagination: the inanimate object is imagined to be a sensible being, but without any conviction, even for a moment, that it really is so. Ideas or fictions of imagination have power to raise emotions in the mind; and when any thing inanimate is, in imagination, supposed to be a sensible being, it makes by that means a greater figure than when an idea is formed of it according to truth. This sort of personification, however, is far inferior to the other in elevation. Thus personification is of two kinds. The first, being more noble, may be termed passionate personification; the other, more humble, descriptive personification; because seldom or never is personification in a description carried to conviction.

The chastity of the English language, which in common usage distinguishes by genders no words but what signify beings male and female, gives thus a fine opportunity for the prosopopoeia; a beauty unknown in other languages, where every word is masculine or feminine.

511 Proof of this figure being natural. Examples from Ossian; from Richard ILTerror communicates itself. Examples. So does joy.