CHAPTER VII.

HYPERBOLE.

320. HYPERBOLE is also the offspring of the influence of imagination and passion over our opinions, and its purpose is to exalt our conceptions of an object beyond its natural bounds.

Illus. 1. Our passions magnify the qualities of objects to which they are attached, and diminish the qualities of those they disapprove or dislike. We exaggerate the good qualities of our friends, and under-rate those of our enemies. We estimate higher a pos session of our own, than a similar property of our neighbor. It is not insincerity that actuates us, and prompts us to impose on others while we are conscious of the error. Our attachment to every thing connected with ourselves, dictates the partial judgments we form of it; the want of that attachment with respect to the things of our neighbor, or the opposite of it, aversion, with respect to the things of our enemy, make our opinions of them, in like manner, deviate from truth.

2. The purpose of hyperbole, is to gratify these predelictions and antipathies, which it is impossible to eradicate from the minds of the most enlightened part of mankind, and which often extinguish, in the less cultivated part, every spark of justice and candour*.

321. This figure is peculiarly graceful and pleasant, when we do not accurately perceive thelimits of the subject we exaggerate; because we most easily believe a thing is very great, when we do not know exactly how great it is.

Illus. Hyperbole, in such a case, resembles the beautiful deception of the rising moon, when her orb appears uncommonly large, because seen indistinctly through all the mysts and vapours of the horizon; or that other deception in the phenomena of vision, by which a small object, placed in a shade, passes for a great one situated at a distance.

322. All discourse and writing admit hyperbole. Though the offspring of the most violent passion, it is also consistent with composure of mind. It some

"Est autem in usu vulgo quoque, et inter ineruditos, et apud rusticos; videlicet, quod natura est omnibus, augendi res vel minuendi cupiditas insita, nec quisquam vero contentus est." Quinctilian.

times affords high enjoyment to the imagination, and indulges this faculty with the most magnificent exhibitions of nature and art. It shines, however, with most conspicuous lustre in the higher kinds of poetry and oratory. It appears chiefly in tragedy during the first transports of passion; and in all these cases, it may be employed to diminish, as well as to magnify.

Example. 1. The fear of an enemy augments the conceptions of the size and prowess of their leader. Thus the scout in Ossian, seized with this propensity, delineates a dreadful picture of the enemy's chief.

"I saw their chief, tall as a rock of ice; his spear, the blasted fir; his shield, the rising moon; he sat on the shore, like a cloud of mist on the hill."

Example 2. Admiration of the happiness of successful love exaggerates conceptions of the lover. Shakspeare supposes the elevation of the lover's mind so great as to counteract the natural laws of gravity respecting his body.

"A lover may bestride the Gossamer,

That idles in the wanton summer air,
And yet not fall-so light is vanity."

Example 3. Horror of treason and oppression prompts the most frightful notions of the traitor and oppressor. Cicero, on this feeling exhibits a striking view of the enormities of Antony. "Quæ Charybdis tam vorax? Charybdim dico? Quæ si fuit animal unum. Oceanus, medius fidius, vix videtur tot res tam dissipatas, tam distantibus in locis positas, tam cito absorbere potuisse."

Example 4. The irksome feeling suggested by the sight of lean cattle tempts us to conclude, that the parts of their bodies have no bond of union but the skin. Virgil accordingly says of such animals, by way of diminution,

"Vix ossibus hærent."

Example 5. Envy also diminishes its object; and upon this principle Shakspeare introduces Cassius vilifying the behaviour of Casar in a fever.

"He had a fever when he was in Spain;
And when the fit was on him, I did mark

How he did shake. 'Tis true, this god did shake;
His coward lips did from their colour fly;
And that same eye whose bend did awe the world,
Did lose its lustre ; I did hear him groan,

Aye, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans
Mark him, and write his speeches in their books,

Alas! it cry'd-Give me some drink, Titinius,

As a sick girl."

Example 6. The resentment of Hamlet against the ignominious marriage of his mother, makes him lessen the time she had remained a widow :

"That it should come to this!

But two months dead! nay, not so much, not two.
Within a month,

A little month, or e'er those shoes were old,

With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
She married."

Example 7. Fame exaggerates the person, as well as the quali ties, of a hero. "The Scythians, impressed with the fame of Alexander, were astonished when they found him a little man.”— Kames.

323. In the speeches of ancient generals to their armies, many beautiful instances are to be found of both kinds of this figure; exaggerations on the one hand, of the number, force, courage, and hopes, of their own troops; and, on the other, diminutions of those of their enemies, in order to inspire that confidence of success, which in these times was one of the surest means of victory.

Example. Longinus mentions a diminutive concerning a peice of ground, the property of some poor man; and Quinctilian another of Varro on the same subject. The former represents the property as "not larger than a Lacedæmonian letter," which consisted some times of two or three words. Varro figures it to be as small as a sling-stone; nay, he supposes it may even fall through the hole in the bottom of the sling*. Both these examples seem to belong to ridicule.

324. The errors frequent in the use of hyperbole, arise either from overstraining or introducing it on unsuitable occasions.

Example 1. Dryden, in his poem on the Restoration of King Charles the Second, compliments that monarch at the expence of the sun himself:

"That star that at your birth shone out so bright,

It stain'd the duller sun's meridian light."

Example 2. Prior supposes the fire of a lady's eyes to outshice

*Fundum Varro vocat, quem possum mittere funda ni tamen exciderit, que cava funda patet."

the flames of Rome when, lighted up by Nero; and the music of her lute, to surpass the fabulous miracles of Amphion, in building the city of Thebes. She would have rebuilt Rome faster than it could have been destroyed by the fires of Nero :

"To burning Rome, when frantic Nero play'd,
Viewing thy face, no more he had survey'd

The raging flames, but, struck with strange surprise,
Confess'd them less than those in Anna's eyes.
But had he heard thy lute, he soon had found
His rage eluded, and his crime aton'd;

Thine, like Amphion's hand, had wak'd the stone,
And from destruction call'd the rising town.
Malice to music had been forc'd to yield,

Nor could he burn so fast as thou could'st build." Example 3. Shakspeare, in magnifying the warlike character of his heroes, sometimes exaggerates beyond all bounds of probability. The description of the river Severn hastening to the reeds, to hide his head from the sight of combatants so furious as Mortimer and Glendower, can scarcely be read with gravity.

"In single opposition, hand to hand,

He did confound the best part of an hour,
In changing hardiment with great Glendower.

Three times they breath'd, and three times did they drink,
Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood;

Who, then affrighted with their bloody looks,
Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds,
And hid his crisp'd head in the hollow bank,
Blood-stained with these valiant combatants."

Example 4. Guarini, who perhaps excels all poets in studied extravagance, makes a shepherd thus address his mistress: "If all the sticks in the world were made into pens, the heavens into paper, and the sea into ink, they would not furnish materials sufficient to describe the least part of your perfections."

Example 5. Again, the same poet says, "If I had as many tongues, and as many words, as there are stars in the heavens, and grains of sand on the shore, my tongues would be tired, and iny words would be exhausted, before I could do justice to your immense merit*."

Example 6. An English poet converted the circumstances of the former of these extravagant compliments into a satire no less exaggerated:

"Could we with ink the ocean fill,

* Si tante lingue havesse, et tante voce,
Quant' ochil il cielo, e quante arene il mare,
Perderian tutte il suono, e la favella,

Nel dir a pien le vostre lodi immense."

Pastor Fido, Act. V. Scene 2.

Were earth of parchment made;
Were ev'ry single stick a quill,
Each man a scribe by trade;
To write the tricks of half the sex,
Would drink that ocean dry.
Gallants beware, look sharp, take care;
The blind eat many a fly."

325. Hyperboles should never be introduced till the mind of the reader is prepared to relish them.The introduction of such bold figures abruptly, puts the reader on his guard, and excites his reflection, which commonly dissipates the delusion, and defeats the purpose of the writer.

Example. No passion ever spoke the language which grief is made to assume in the following unnatural exaggeration. The fig. ure and the tone of sentiment are totally discordant. King Richard II. deeply distressed on account of the calamities of the nation, thus addresses his cousin Aumerle, who was under much affliction from the same cause:

"Why weepest thou, my tender-hearted cousin?
We'll make foul weather with despised tears;

Our sighs, and they shall lodge the corn,

And make a dearth in this revolting land."

326. HYPERBOLES are improper, when they may be turned against the argument of the author who uses them.

Illus. Isocrates, it is said, had employed many years in composing a panegyric on the Athenians, to assert their pretensions to precedency in the management of the affairs of Greece. It was delivered at the Olympic games, attended by citizens from all the states of that country; and in the beginning of it he introduced the subsequent exaggerated compliment to eloquence :

Example. "Eloquence can reverse in appearance the nature of things. It can impart to illustrious deeds the air of lowliness and insignificance, and exhibit inconsiderable, and even trifling actions, with the dignity of magnificence and heroism. It can bestow on antiquity the garb of novelty, and attire novelty with the respect and veneration due to antiquity."

Analysis. Longinus pertinently remarks, the author did not observe, that by this unseasonable encomium he was dispersing among his hearers an antidote against the operation of all the arguments he had to advance in behalf of his countrymen, the Athenians. Would the other Greek states be persuaded to do what they disliked, by an orator who had told them that his eloquence could reverse in appearance the nature of things? Might they not, in doing what he advised, perform the very opposite of what was right?