ΟΝΟΜΑΤΟΡΕΙΑ.

The ONOMATOPEΙΑ, (from ονομα, a name, and ποιεω, το make,) is a figure by which a word is formed from the sound, or an appellation given to a person from some relative employment or duty. Thus hail is said to rattle, a serpent to hiss; also a bailiff is termed a catchpoll, a robber, a cut-throat, &c.

"The Thunderer spoke, nor durst the queen reply;

A reverend horror silenced all the sky."
"To spin with art, in ancient times, has been
Thought not beneath the noble dame or queen;
From that employ, our maidens had the name
Of spinsters, which the moderns never claim."

OXYMORON.

Pope's Homer.

The OXYMORON, (from ožus, sharp, and μwpos, a fool,) or sharp blunt, is a seeming contradiction of expression, as, a bitter sweet," "a cruel kindness."

"I am never less alone, than when alone."

"Love, heavy lightness! serious vanity!
Misshapen chaos of well seeming forms!

Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,
Still waking sleep, that is not what it is."

SHAKSPEARE-Romeo and Juliet.

"A person having remarked that it was absurd to call a well-known hedge-fruit, blackberries, when they were red. "Don't you know," replied the other, "that blackberries are always red when they are green."

PARALEIPSIS.

The PARALEIPSIS, (from πapa, and Xɛw, to leave,) sometimes called Apophasis, and Ampliminus, expresses the seeming omission of something in order to enhance its value, as,

"I might say many things of his liberality, of his kindness to his domestics, his command in the army, and moderation during his office in the province; but the honour of the state presents itself to my view, and calling me to it, advises me to omit these lesser matters."

"Not to mention his public charities, to count the widows' hearts he made to sing for joy, the fatherless who found in him a benefactor, and the indigent whom he befriended. He lived the life and died the death of the righteous."

PERIPHRASIS.

The PERIPHRASIS, (from Tept, about, and opazoμa, to say,) or Circumlocution, is a figure, which, for the sake of emphasis, or ornament, expresses a thing, or circumstance,

in more words than are actually necessary to convey the meaning, as, "He who is, and was, and is to come," i. e. God. "The disciple that Jesus loved,” i. e. John. abominable thing that God hateth," i. e. Sin.

""Tis now the very witching time of night,

When church-yards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world."

"That

SHAKSPEARE-Humlet.

"Nine times the space that measures day and night

To mortal men; he, with his horrid crew,

Lay vanquish'd."

"Their ships with gaping seams,
Admit the deluge of the briny streams."

"Hail reverend priest! to Phoebus' awful dome
A suppliant, I, from great Atreides come :
Unransom'd, here receive the spotless fair,
Accept the hecatomb the Greeks' prepare;
And may thy God who scatters darts around,
Aton'd by sacrifice, desist to wound."

POLYSYNDETON.

MILTON.

DRYDEN.

РОРЕ.

The POLYSYNDETON, (from πολυς, many, and συνδεω, to connect,) is a repetition of the conjunction, or particle, as, "Ye observe days, and nights, and months, and years," Gal. iv. 10.

"The dreadful cry

Shakes earth and air and seas.' ""

"Now from the north

DRYDEN.

Of Norembega, and the Samoeid shore,

Bursting their brazen dungeons, arm'd with ice,

And snow, and hail, and stormy gust, and flaw,
Boreas, and Coesias, and Argestes loud,

And Thrasias rend the woods and seas upturn."

MILTON.

PROSOPOPEIA.

The PROSOPOPEIA, (from πроσwπоv, a person, and TOLEW, to make,) or Personification, is a figure by which absent persons, or things, are addressed as present, or when inanimate things have a living power attributed to them, as, "The sea saw it and fled; Jordan was driven back," Ps. cxiv. 3.

"Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty, now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumb'ring world."

"The Sun beheld it-No, the shocking scene

Drove back his chariot: Midnight veil'd his face."

YOUNG.

YOUNG.

"When young eyed Spring profusely throws,
From her green lap the pink and rose ;
When the soft turtle of the dale
To Summer tells her tender tale,
When Autumn cooling caverns seeks,
And stains with wine his jolly cheeks;
When Winter, like poor pilgrim old,
Shakes his silver beard with cold;
At every season let my ear,
Thy solemn whispers, Fancy, hear."

'Eternity, the various sentence past
Assigns the sever'd throng distinct abodes,
Sulphureous or ambrosial. What ensues?
The deed predominant! the deed of deeds!
Which makes a hell of hell, a heav'n of heav'n.
The Goddess, with determin'd aspect, turns
Her adamantine key's enormous size
Through destiny's inextricable wards,
Deep-driving every bolt, on both their fates;
Then from the crystal battlements of heav'n,
Down, down she hurls it thro' the dark profound,
Ten thousand thousand fathoms; there to rust,
And ne'er unlock her resolution more.'

WARTON.

YOUNG.

MASON-Caractacus.

"The time will come, when Destiny and Death,
Thron'd in a burning car, the thund'ring wheels
Arm'd with gigantic scythes of adaniant,
Shall scour this field of life and in the rear,
The fiend, oblivion: kingdoms, empires, worlds,
Melt in the general blaze: when, lo! from high,
Andraste darting, catches from the wreck
The roll of Fame, claps her ascending plumes,
And stamps on orient stars each patriot name,
Round her eternal dome."

MASON-Caractacus.

"Atlas' broad shoulders, prop th' incumbent skies,
Around his cloud-girt head, the stars arise;
His towering neck supports th' ethereal way,
And o'er his brow, black woods their gloom display;
Hoar is his beard, winds round his temples roar,
And from his jaws the rushing torrents pour."

Silius Italicus, Lib. i. v. 202.

THE CRUCIFIXION.

I ask'd the heavens, "What foe to God hath done
This unexampled deed?" The heavens exclaim,
""Twas MAN; and we in horror snatch'd the sun
From such a spectacle of guilt and shame."

I ask'd the sea;-the sea in fury boil'd

And answer'd with his voice of storms, ""Twas MAN!
My waves in panic at his crimes recoiled,

Disclos'd the abyss,—and from the centre ran.',
I ask'd the earth ;-the earth replied, aghast,

""Twas MAN;—and such strange pangs my bosom rent,
That still I groan and shudder at the past."

-To man, gay, smiling, thoughtless man I went,
And ask'd him next : He turn'd a scornful eye,
Shook his proud head and deign'd me no reply."

SIMILE.

MONTGOMERY.

The SIMILE, (from similis, like,) is an elegant and striking species of comparison, by which any thing is illustrated or aggrandized, as,

"She never told her love,

But let concealment, like a worm i' th' bud,
Feed on her damask cheek; she pin'd in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy,

She sat like patience on a monument,

Smiling at grief."

SHAKSPEARE-Romeo and Juliet.

"On th' other side,

Incens'd with indignation, Satan stood
Unterrify'd, and like a comet burned,
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge,
In th' arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war.'

The other shape,

If shape it might be call'd that shape had none,
Distinguishable in member, joint or limb,

Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd,

For each seem'd either; black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as Hell,

And shook a dreadful dart."

"She died in beauty!—like a rose,
Blown from its parent stem:
She died in beauty!—like a pearl,
Dropp'd from some diadem.
She died in beauty!—like a lay,
Along a moonlit lake:

She died in beauty!-like the song,

Of birds amid the brake.

She died in beauty!-like the snow,

On flowers dissolved away:

She died in beauty!-like a star,
Lost on the brow of day.

She lives in glory!-like night's gem
Set round the silver moon:

She lives in glory!-like the sun,
Amid the blue of June."

MILTON.

MILTON.

Sillery's Eldrid of Erin.

SYNCHORESIS.

συ

The SYNCHORESIS, (from ov [xwpew, to grant,) or concession, is when something disputable is admitted in order to obtain advantage in an argument, as,

"I am, I own, the common bane of youth, a perjured villain, a very pest; but I never did you any injury.”

TERENCE.

"I allow, that no one was more nearly related to the deceased than you. I grant that he was under some obligations to you; nay that you have always been in friendly correspondence with each other: but what is all this to the last will and testament?"

"Can every part depend and not the whole?

Yet grant it true, new difficulties rise;

I'm still quite out at sea, nor see the shore,

Whence earth and these bright orbs? eternal too?
Grant matter was eternal: still these orbs
Would want some other father."

VISION.

YOUNG.

VISION, (from video, to see,) is an abrupt exclamation through a feigned or real illusion of the senses, as,

SHAKSPEARE-Humlet.

Why look you there! look! how it stalks away;
My father in his habit as he lived;

Look where it goes, even now, out at the portal."

SHAKSPEARE.-Hamlet.

"What beckoning ghost along the moonlight shade,
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade !
'Tis she-but why that bleeding bosom gor'd,
Why dimly gleams the visionary sword?
Oh, ever beauteous, ever friendly, tell,
Is it in heaven a crime to love too well?"
"Lo! silence himself is here,
Methinks I see the midnight god appear.
In all his downy pomp array'd,
Behold the rev'rend shade:
An ancient sigh he sits upon,

Whose memory of sound is long since gone
And purposely annihilated for his throne:
Beneath, two soft transparent clouds do meet,
In which he seems to sink his softer feet.
A melancholy thought condens'd to air,
Stol'n from a lover in despair,
Like a thin mantle serves to wrap,
In fluid folds his visionary shape.

A wreath of darkness round his head he wears,
Where curling mists supply the want of hairs,
While the still vapours which from poppies rise,
Bedew his hoary face and lull his eyes."

POPE.

CONGREVE.