That were embattled and ranked in Kent;
Another lean, unwashed artificer

Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death.

MALICE.

How like a fawning publican he looks!

I hate him, for he is a Christian,

But more for that, in low simplicity,

He lends out money gratis, and brings down
The rate of usance here with us in Venice.

If I can catch him once upon the hip,

I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.
He hates our sacred nation, and he rails,

E'en there where merchants most do congregate,
On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift,
Which he calls interest. Cursed be my tribe,
If I forgive him!

YOUNG LADIES' READER.

LESSON I.

Figurative Language.

FIGURES of speech, in general, may be regarded as that language which is prompted either by the imagination or the passions. Rhetoricians commonly divide them into two great classes; figures of words, or tropes, and figures of thought. This distinction, however, is of little importance, provided we remember that figurative language always implies some coloring of the imagination, or some emotion of passion expressed in the style.

The use of tropes or figures is, to enrich language and render it more copious and expressive. They bestow dignity upon style, are suggestive and agreeable to the mind, and frequently give a clearer and more striking view of the principal object of discourse than would be presented, if it were expressed in simple terms. This is, indeed, their principal advantage, and, therefore, they are very properly said to illustrate a subject, or to throw light upon it. They exhibit the object on which they are employed in a picturesque form; they can render an abstract conception in some degree an object of sense; they surround it with such circumstances as enable the mind to grasp it steadily and to contemplate it fully. By a well-chosen figure even conviction is assisted, and the impression of a truth upon the mind made more lively

and forcible. A figurative style, however, it is to be remembered, should never be applied to an unimportant matter; neither should figures ever have the appearance of being laboriously sought or forced into use.

The principal figures of speech are Metaphor, Comparison or Simile, Allegory, Personification, Apostrophe, Hyperbole, Climax, Antithesis, Interrogation, Irony, Exclamation, and Vision.

Metaphor and Simile, or Comparison, are closely allied to cach other. The Simile may be considered as differing in form only from the Metaphor, the resemblance being in one case stated which in the other is implied. Thus, when it is said of some great minister," that he upholds the state like a pillar, which supports the weight of a whole edifice,” a comparison is made; but when it is said of such a minister "that he is the pillar of the state,” a metaphor is employed.

Allegory is a continued metaphor, in which one thing is expressed and another thing understood, and in which the analogy, or resemblance, is intended to be so obvious that the reader cannot mistake the application, though he is left to draw the proper conclusion for himself. A finer and more correct allegory is not to be found than the following from the 80th Psalm, in which a vineyard is made to represent God's people, the Israelites : —

"Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt; thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it. Thou preparedst room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land. The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars. She sent out her boughs unto the sea, and her branches unto the river. Why hast thou then broken down her hedges, so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her? The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it. Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts: look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine."

Personification consists in attributing life, action, and emotion to abstract qualities or inanimate objects. In Shakspeare's

Richard II., the king, after landing in England from his expedition in Ireland, employs this figure in giving vent to his feelings.

"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."

Apostrophe addresses the absent or the dead, or, from the influence of passion, turns from the regular object of address to the person spoken of. Many fine examples of this figure are to be found in the Scriptures. David's lamentation for his son Absalom, is one of the most affecting examples of an address to the dead. The poems of Ossian are full of the most beautiful apostrophes. His address to the moon is a striking example of this figure.

"Daughter of Heaven, fair art thou! the silence of thy face is pleasant thou comest forth in loveliness; the stars attend thy blue steps in the East. The clouds rejoice in thy presence, O moon! and brighten their dark-brown sides. Who is like thee in Heaven, daughter of the night? Whither dost thou retire from thy course, when the darkness of thy countenance grows? Hast thou thy hall, like Ossian? Dwellest thou in the shadow of grief? Have thy sisters fallen from Heaven, and are they who rejoiced with thee at night no more?"

Hyperbole consists in describing a thing as greater or less than it is in reality; but, however wild, it does not deceive us. It is extravagant only in words, and is not to be understood to the full amount of its statement. Thus the scout in Ossian, under the influence of fear, gives a startling picture of the enemy's chief, but it is evident that his exaggeration is not to be taken literally.

"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."

Climax, or Amplification, is nearly related to hyperbole, and differs from it chiefly in degree. The purpose of hyperbole is, to exalt our conceptions beyond the truth; of climax, to elevate our ideas of the truth itself, by a series of circumstances, ascending one above another in importance, and all pointing toward the same object.

"The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all that it inhabits, shall dissolve,
And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a rack behind."

Antithesis is a figure of arrangement, and is designed to heighten our conceptions of a subject by placing things in strong contrast with each other.

"The chain of being is complete in me;
In me is matter's last gradation lost,
And the next step is spirit - Deity!

I can command the lightning, and am dust!

A monarch, and a slave; a worm, a god!

Whence came I here? and how so marvellously
Constructed and conceived? Unknown! This clod
Lives surely through some higher energy;

For from itself alone it could not be !"

Interrogation implies, literally, ignorance or doubt; figuratively, the entire confidence of conviction. When men are deeply moved, whatever they would affirm or deny, with great earnestness, they naturally put in the form of a question. The strongest confidence is thereby expressed of their own sentiment, by appealing to their hearers for the impossibility of the contrary. This is seen in Hazael's reply to the prophet Elisha, in the Book of Kings, "What, is thy servant a dog that he should do this great thing?"