had seen a storm at fea might not think the following lines in Virgil's description of one much overcharged: Atque imo barathri ter gurgite vastos Sorbet in abruptum fluctus rurfufque fub auras ENEID. lib. III. ver. 421. Likewise, if we only make proper allowance for the notions which the common people of all countries ftill entertain of murder, and how much they imagine a particular providence is concerned to detect and punish murderers, we may not, perhaps, be very fevere upon the following fpeech of the Baftard to Haftings, upon his fufpecting him to have murdered prince Arthur: If thou didst but confent To do this most cruel act, do but despair, And if thou want a cord, the smallest thread Will ftrangle thee. A rush will be a beam. To hang thee on. Or would't thou drown thyself, And it shall be as all the ocean, Enough to stifle fuch a villain up. KING JOHN, A&t IV. Scene 7. The extravagant hyperbole is the common fault of those writers who aim at the fublime, and the style that abounds with it is generally termed the bombaft. As the hyperbole is a figure that has a very striking effect, and is extremely easy in itself (for what can be easier than to exceed the truth in description ?) writers whofe whofe aim was to elevate and aftonish their readers have often adopted it, without confidering how few circumftances there are in which it can be admitted with propriety. They have not always confidered whether every thing preceding, and accompanying that figure, would contribute to make it carry along with it a conviction, that no other form of expreffion could fo clearly convey the proper idea. For if it be the expreffion, and not the idea, that furprizes a reader, it is a fure mark that the expreffion was improper; fince, when it is proper, it only conveys the idea, and doth not draw any attention upon itfelf. Had these things been confidered, we should not, perhaps, have feen many hyperboles at the beginning of a compofition, introduced in places where the ideas did not require to be elevated or enlarged by any foreign affiftance, or put into the mouths of perfons who were not under the influence of any strong paffion, or a very lively imagination. Of all our late writers of character, Dryden and Lee feem to have been the most intemperate in the use of the hyperbole. As great a departure as an hyperbole is from truth, and consequently as ftriking as this figure must be, cuftom has perfectly reconciled our minds to many very extraordinury instances of it; particularly when the hyperbole flows from a lively imagination, and is not uttered in the vehemence of paffion. Any perfon may amuse himself in seeing this verified, if he only take a turn upon a bowling-green, and obferve when a bowl is faid, by fome perfons engaged in the diverfion, to be a mile, or a hundred, or five hundred miles, from the jack. Befides, how many familiar expreffions, in common converfation, pass without cenfure, which yet are extravagantly hyperbolical; as when we fay, A man is nothing but skin and bone, &c. Perfons 本 Perfons of little reading, and consequently grofs conceptions, have little feeling of, or relish for, any thing but what is very extravagant. Nothing but the marvellous and fupernatural hath any charms for them; but as their taste refines, in confequence of a greater attention to, and more exact knowledge of, human nature and the world, they learn to distinguish and relish the more delicate beauties of compofition; they become disgusted with every thing that is extravagant, and can admire nothing that deviates far from ftrict propriety. Accordingly, we see that the style of the generality of writers (which must keep pace with the general improvement of taste) approaches nearer to a medium. The books which took with the generality of readers in the last age are little read, and are little capable of pleafing, now. Indeed, fomething fimilar to this may be obferved in every individual. Few perfons, when they are advanced in life, and their judgment ripened, can relish the compofitions which charmed them when young. We are told that Milton would read, with the greatest avidity and rapture, all the books of chivalry and romance that he could meet with, when he was young; but we can never imagine that he would have borne with any patience those extravagant fictions, and the bombast style in which they were generally compofed at the time that he wrote the Paradise Loft. LECTURE LECTURE XXIX. Of PERSONIFICATION. A NOTHER fource of pleasure in works of genius and imagination, is the views which writers take frequent opportunities of presenting to us of human fentiments, human paffons, and human actions. As the fentiments and actions of our fellow-creatures are more interefting to us than any thing belonging to inanimate nature, or the actions of brute animals, a much greater variety of fenfations and ideas muft have been excited by them, and confequently adhere to them by the principle of affociation. Hence it is of prodigious advantage, in treating of inanimate things, or merely of brute animals, to introduce frequent allufions to human actions and fentiments, where any resemblance will make it natural. This converts every thing we treat of into thinking and acting beings. We fee life, fenfe, and intelligence, every where. The effect of this figure is so pleasing, that when there is no kind of deception in the case, if the resemblance be fufficiently ftrong, and other circumstances favour the figure, the impropriety of the perfonification gives not the leaft offence. In fact, this figure is become fo general, that it is almost impoffible to discourse about any thing, in the calmeft manner in the 2 world, world, without borrowing fome part of our language from the regions of life and fenfe. Even the most abftruse mathematicians and metaphysicians cannot always fo far abstract themselves from human life, as not to retain many terms borrowed from the actions and paffions of mankind. The metaphyfical terms agent and patient, always carry along with them ideas which the definitions of them do not include. And, provided the foreign ideas do not affect the propofition formed out of them (as was perhaps the cafe in the old philofophy) they give fome degree of colour and life to thofe abftract ideas, without being attended with any inconvenience. The ideas of male and female are, in the English language, so ftrictly confined to objects that have fex, and confequently life and fenfe, that I queftion whether any term implying fex, to whatever it be applied, do not excite a momentary idea of those qualities. Can the following paffage in Milton be read without a mental personification? First in his East the glorious lamp was feen, His longitude thro' heaven's high road: the grey His mirror, with full face borrowing her light- PARADISE LOST, Book VII. 1. 370. Perhaps it may not appear quite chimerical to fuppofe, that the extenfion of fex in moft fouthern languages, to almost all inanimate things, may have taken its rife from a lively imagination, perfonifying almoft every thing. The |