among classical writers: witness the following hyperbole, too bold even for a Hotspur. Hotspur talking of Mortimer : In single opposition hand to hand, He did confound the best part of an hour In changing hardiment with great Glendower. Three times they breathed, and three times did they drink, Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks, Speaking of Henry V.: First Part Henry IV. Act I. Sc. 4. England ne'er had a king until his time: His brandish'd sword did blind men with his beams: First Part Henry VI. Act I. Sc. 1. Lastly, An hyperbole, after it is introduced with all advantages, ought to be comprehended within the fewest words possible: as it cannot be relished but in the hurry and swelling of the mind, a leisurely view dissolves the charm, and discovers the description to be extravagant at least, and perhaps also ridiculous. This fault is palpable in a sonnet which passeth for oue of the most complete in the French language. Phillis, in a long and florid description, is made as far to outshine the sun as he outshines the stars: Le silence régnoit sur la terre et sur l'onde, Vous parûtes alors aussi peu devant elle, Que les feux de la nuit avoient fait devant vous.-Malleville. There is in Chaucer a thought expressed in a single line, which gives more lustre to a young beauty than the whole of this muchlabored poem: Up rose the sun, and up rose Emelie. 521. The natural limits of hyperbole. In what words to be conveyed. SECTION IV. The Means or Instrument conceived to be the Agent. 522. WHEN We survey a number of connected objects, that which makes the greatest figure employs chiefly our attention; and the emotion it raises, if lively, prompts us even to exceed nature in the conception we form of it. Take the following examples: For Neleus' son Alcides' rage had slain. A broken rock the force of Pirus threw. In these instances, the rage of Hercules and the force of Pirus being the capital circumstances, are so far exalted as to be conceived the agents that produce the effects. In the following instances, hunger being the chief circumstance in the description, is itself imagined to be the patient: Whose hunger has not tasted food these three days.-Jane Shore. As when the force Of subterranean wind transports a hill.-Paradise Lost. As when the potent rod Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day Waved round the coast, upcall'd a pitchy cloud Of locusts. Paradise Lost. SECTION V. A Figure which, among Related Objects, extends the Properties of one to another. 523. THIS figure is not dignified with a proper name, because it has been overlooked by writers. It merits, however, a place in this work; and must be distinguished from those formerly handled, as depending on a different principle. Giddy brink, jovial wine, daring wound, are examples of this figure. Here are adjectives that cannot be made to signify any quality of the substantives to which they are joined a brink, for example, cannot be termed giddy in a sense, either proper or figurative, that can signify any of its qualities or attributes. When we examine attentively the expression, we discover that a brink is termed giddy from producing that effect in those who stand on it. In the same manner a wound is said to be 522. In surveying connected objects, what gains chief attention?-How the capital cir cumstances are sometimes exalted. Examples. daring, not with respect to itself, but with respect to the boldness of the person who inflicts it; and wine is said to be jovial, as inspiring mirth and jollity. Thus the attributes of one subject are extended to another with which it is connected; and the expression of such a thought must be considered as a figure, because the attribute is not applicable to the subject in any proper sense. Lan How are we to account for this figure, which we see lies in the thought, and to what principle shall we refer it? Have poets a privilege to alter the nature of things, and at pleasure to bestow attributes upon a subject to which they do not belong? We have had often occasion to inculcate that the mind passeth easily and sweetly along a train of connected objects; and where the objects are intimately connected, that it is disposed to carry along the good and bad properties of one to another, especially when it is in any degree inflamed with these properties. (See chapter ii. part i. sec. 5.) From this principle is derived the figure under consideration. guage, invented for the communication of thought, would be imperfect if it were not expressive even of the slighter propensities and more delicate feelings: but language cannot remain so imperfect among a people who have received any polish; because language is regulated by internal feeling, and is gradually improved to express whatever passes in the mind. Thus, for example, when a sword in the hand of a coward is termed a coward sword, the expression is significative of an internal operation; for the mind, in passing from the agent to its instrument, is disposed to extend to the latter the properties of the former. Governed by the same principle, we say listening fear, by extending the attribute listening of the man who listens to the passion with which he is moved. In the expression bold deed, or audax facinus, we extend to the effect what properly belongs to the cause. But not to waste time by making a commentary upon every expression of this kind, the best way to give a complete view of the subject, is to exhibit a table of the different relations that may give occasion to this figure. And in viewing the table, it will be observed that the figure can never have any grace but where the relations are of the most intimate kind. 1. An attribute of the cause expressed as an attribute of the effect. Audax facinus. Of yonder fleet a bold discovery make. An impious mortal gave the daring wound. To my adventurous song, That with no middle flight intends to soar. 2. An attribute of the effect expressed as an Pause. Quos periisse ambos misera censebam in mari. Paradise Lost. attribute of the Plautus. Paradise Lost. 3. An effect expressed as an attribute of tae cause. Jovial wine, Giddy brink, Drowsy night, Musing midnight, Painting height, Astonish'd thought, Mouraful gloom Casting a dim religious light. And the merry bells ring round, Milton, Comus. Milton, Allegro. 4. An attribute of a subject bestowed upon one of its parts or members. 5. A quality of the agent given to the instrument with which it operates. Why peep your coward swords half out their shells! 6. An attribute of the agent given to the subject upon which it operates. Then, nothing loth, th' enamor'd fair he led, 8. A circumstance connected with a subject, quality of the subject. Breezy summit. 'Tis ours the chance of fighting fields to try. Oh! had I died before that well-fought wall. Summer, 1. 1836. expressed as a Iliad, i. 801. Odyssey, v. 395. 523. The expressions giddy brink, jovial wine, daring wound, explained. How this Agure is to be accounted for. Table of the different relations that may give occasion to this figure. 524. From this table it appears that the adorning & cause with an attribute of the effect, is not so agreeable as the opposite expression. The progress from cause to effect is natural and easy: the opposite progress resembles retrograde motion (see chapter i.); and, therefore, panting height, astonish'd thought, are strained and uncouth expressions, which a writer of taste will avoid. It is not less strained to apply to a subject in its present state, an epithet that may belong to it in some future state: Submersasque obrue puppes. And mighty ruins fall. Impious sons their mangled fathers wound. Eneid, i. 73 Iliad, v. 411. Another rule regards this figure, that the property of one subject ought not to be bestowed upon another with which that property is incongruous: King Rich. How dare thy joints forget Richard II. Act III. Sc. 6. The connection between an awful superior and his submissive dependent is so intimate, that an attribute may readily be transferred from the one to the other; but awfulness cannot be so transferred, because it is inconsistent with submission. SECTION VI. Metaphor and Allegory. 525. A METAPHOR differs from a simile in form only, not in substance in a simile, the two subjects are kept distinct in the expression, as well as in the thought; in a metaphor, the two subjects are kept distinct in the thought only, not in the expression. A hero resembles a lion, and, upon that resemblance, many similes have been raised by Homer and other poets. But instead of resembling a lion, let us take the aid of the imagination, and feign or figure the hero to be a lion: by that variation the simile is converted into a metaphor; which is carried on by describing all the qualities of a lion that resemble those of the hero. The fundamental pleasure here, that of resemblance, belongs to the thought. An additional pleasure arises from the expression: the poet, by figuring his hero to be a lion, goes on to describe the lion in appearance, but in reality the hero; and his description is peculiarly beautiful, by expressing the virtues and qualities of the hero in new terms, which, properly speaking, belong not to him but to the lion. This will better be understood by examples. A family connected with a 524. Inferences from the above table. |