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

As You Like It, Act III. Sc. 4.

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.

Description of Hudibras's horse:

Hudibras, Canto I.

He was well stay'd, and in his gait
Preserv'd 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 griev'd to touch the ground:
That Cæsar's horse, who, as fame 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.

Honor is, like a widow won
With brisk attempt and putting on,
With entering manfully and urging;
Not slow approaches, like a virgin.
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.

Canto I.

Canto I.

Part II. Canto II.

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 fortane, 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. Ibid.

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

Box'd in a chair, the beau impatient sits,

While spouts run clatt'ring o'er the roof by fits
And ever and anon with frightful din
The leather sounds; he trembles from within.
So when Troy chairmen bore the wooden steed,
Pregnant with Greeks, impatient to be freed,
(Those bully Greeks, who, as the moderns do,
Instead of paying chairmen run them through,)
Laocoon struck the outside with his spear,
And each imprison'd hero quak'd for fear.

Description of a City Shower. Shift.
Clubs, diamonds, hearts, in wild disorder seen,
With throngs promiscuous strow the level green.
Thus when dispers'd a routed army runs,
Of Asia's troops, and Afrie's sable sons,
With like confusion, different nations fly,
Of various habit, and of various dye,

The pierc'd battalions disunited, fall

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

Rape of the Lock, Canto III.

Lady Easy. My dear, I am
Sir Charles. O! not at all.

a dish of tea.

He does not consider that sincerity in love is as much out of fashion as sweet snuff; nobody takes it now. Careless Husband. afraid you have provoked her a little too far. You shall see, I'll sweeten her, and she'll cool like Ibid.

CHAPTER XX.

FIGURES.

The bestowing of sensibility and voluntary motion upon inanimate things, a bold figure Illustrations-Personification of two kinds-The former attended with conviction-Abstract terms not well adapted to poetry-The difficulty of distinguishing between descriptive personification and a figure of speech-Dispiriting passions unfavorable to passionate personification-Passionate personification to be exclusively confined to the gratification of the passionDescriptive personification-The writer always to confine himself to easy personification-Personification of low objects, ridiculous-The same remark applicable to abstract terms-Terms of dignity excepted-Preparation necessary to personification-Descriptive personification to be especially restrained within due bounds-Descriptive personification to be dispatched in few words.

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. Confining myself, therefore, to such figures, I am luckily freed from much trash; without dropping, as far as I remember, any trope or figure that merits a proper name. And I begin with Prosopopia or personification, which is justly entitled to the first place.

SECTION I-PERSONIFICATION.

THE bestowing of 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, in 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 churchyard, 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. 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 Casar, Act III. Sc. 1.

Here Antony must have been impressed with a notion, that the body of Cæsar 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 same kind, the earth, as a common mother, is animated to give refuge against a father's unkindness:

Again:

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 soliloquy 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 sympathising beings. Thus Philoctetes complains to the rocks and promontories of the isle of Lemnos; and Alcestes dying, invokes the sun, the light of day, the clouds, the earth, her husband's palace, &c. 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:

Daphni, tuum Panos etiam ingemuisse leones
Interitum, montesque feri sylvæque loquuntur.
The death of Daphnis woods and hills deplore,
They cast the sound to Lybia's desert shore;
The Lybian lions hear, and hearing roar.

Illum etiam lauri, illum etiam flevere myricæ.
Pinifer illum etiam sola sub rupe jacentem
Mænalus, et gelidi fleverunt saxa Lycæi

* Page 335.

+ Chap. 2. part 5.

Eclogue V. 27.

Eclogue X. 13.

+ Philoctetes of Sophocles, Act IV. Sc. 2.
§ Alcestes of Euripides, Act II. Sc. 1.

For him the lofty laurel stands in tears,
And hung with humid pearls the lowly shrub appears.
Mænalean pines the godlike swain bemoan,
When spread beneath a rock, he sighed alone;
And cold Lycæus wept from every dropping stone.

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 Ossian'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 mixture of joy and resentment:

-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 I 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 rav'nous sense
But let thy spiders that suck up thy venom,
And heavy-gaited toads, lie in their way;
Doing annoyance to the treach'rous 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. Sc. 1.

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 sympathise with the traveller. See an example, Agamemnon of Æschilus, Act III. in the beginning. Regret for leaving a place to which one has been accustomed, has the same effect.*

Terror produces 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.

Eneid, III. 672.

With that he roared aloud, the dreadful cry
Shakes earth, and air, and seas; the billows fly
Before the bellowing noise to distant Italy.
As when old Ocean roars,

And heaves huge surges to the trembling shores.

Iliad, II. 249.

Go view the settling sea. The stormy wind is laid; but the billows still 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 epouvanté.

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 north-east winds blow
Sabean odor from the spicy shore

Of Araby the Blest; with such delay

Well pleas'd, they slack their course, and many a league

Cheer'd with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles. Paradise Lost, b. IV. 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 heav'n's high road: the gray
Dawn and the Pleiades before him danc'd,
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 flight she needed none.
Paradise Lost, b. VII. 1. 370.†

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

Romeo and Juliet, Act III. Sc. 5.
But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill.

Hamlet, Act I. Sc. I.

It may, I presume, be taken for granted, that in the foregoing instances, 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

Philoctetes of Sophocles, at the close.

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 prosopopeia; a beauty unknown in other languages, where every word is masculine or feminine.