Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

Care climbs the vessel's prow,

Sits fast upon the racer's stead;

Her flight outstrips the bounding roe,

And leaves behind the whirlwind's speed. Anon.

5. In an Irony, we speak one thing, and design another, in order to give the greater force and vehemence to our meaning. An irony is distinguished from the real sentiments of the speaker or writer, by the accent, the air, the extravagance of the praise, the character of the person, the nature of the thing, or the vein of the discourse. Numerous instances of this trope occurs in the scriptures. Thus the prophet Elijah speaks in irony to the priests of Baal, Cry aloud, for he is a GOD; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is on a journey, or peradventure he sleeps, and must be awaked. See also Job xii. 2. Eccles. xi. 9. Gen. iii. 22. Mark vii. 9. Abp. Tillotson, when speaking of the Papists, uses the most poignant species of irony; he says, "If it seem good to us to put our necks once more under that yoke which our fathers were not able to bear; if it be, really a preferment to a prince to hold the pope's stirrup, and a privilege to be disposed of him at pleasure, and a courtesy to be killed at his command;-if, to pray without understanding;-to obey without reason;-and to believe against sense: if ignorance and implicit faith, and an inquisition be in good earnest, such charming and desirable things; then, welcome Popery, which, wherever thou comest, dost infallibly bring all these wonderful privileges and blessings along with thee." Works iii. 392. 8vo.

2

6. Synechdoche is a trope in which (1.) the whole is put for a part, (2.) a part for the whole, (3.) a general name for a particular one, and (4.) a particular name for a general one, (1.) In Luke xvi. 23. Lazarus is said to be in Abraham's bosom; here man is put for the soul of man: and at other times, man signifies the body only, as in Gen. iii. 19. Till thou return to the ground, that is thy body. (2.) The head is used to signify the man, the pole, the heavens, the point, the sword, a roof, the house, &c. See also, Isaiah vii. 2. Matt. viii. 8. –(3.) Our Lord com mands his apostles, Mark xvi. 15. To go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature, that is, to all mankind. (4.) In Ps. xlvi. 9. the Almighty is said to break the bow, and cut the spear in sunder, and to burn the cha

riot in the fire; that is, God destroys all the weapons of war, and blesses the world with peace. Again in Dan. xii. 14. Many of them that sleep in the dust, shall awake: some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Here the word many is put for all.

7. A Metonymy changes the names of things which are naturally, but not essentially united. Thus when Mars is put for war, and Ceres for corn, they lose their personal sense, and staud for the effects of which those deities are said to be the cause. 2 Kings, iv. 40. There is death in the pot, that is, a poisonous herb that will cause death. See Luke xvi. 29. Numb. xxxii. 23. Gen. xxxv. 23. Exod. xv. 2. Matt. xxvi. 27. Mark i. 33. Death is called pale, because it gives a pallid hue to the countenance. Youth is called gay, because it produces gaiety. Anger is called rash, because it is the cause of rasliness.

§ 2. Figures.

1. By Interrogation, we express the emotion of our minds, and infuse an ardour and energy into our discourses. There are many beautiful instances of this figure in the Sacred Writings. As in Matt. xi. 7. What went ye out into the wilderness to see? a reed shaken with the wind? but what went ye out to see? a man clothed in soft raiment? Behold they that wear soft clothing, are in kings' houses. But what went ye out to see? a Prophet? yea, I say unto you and more than a prophet. See also, John vi. 52. Judges v. 28, 30. Rom. x. 6, 7. Psalm cxxxix. 17. viii. 4. Gen. xii. 18. Matt. xvii. 17. 2 Samı. vi. 20. Jer

xxii. 23. Lam. ii. 13. and 1 Corinth. ix. 1. Milton, in his Paradise Lost, b. ix. v. 686-730, has wonderfully heightened the beauty of Satan's address to Eve by a crowd of interrogations. Thomson in his Summer, verse 67, has also used this figure very successfully

2. Prosopopëia, or Personification, is a figure which consists in describing good, or bad qualities of the mind, or the passions and appetites of human nature, as real and distinct persons. It clothes imaginary beings with corporeal forms, or endows them with speech and action; introduces an absent person as speaking, or one who is dead, as if he were alive and present; and makes rocks, woods, rivers, temples, and other inanimate beings, assume the

properties, and express the emotions, of living and rational. creatures. The scriptures are fertile of examples. Psalmı lxxxv. 10. Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. What can be more sublime, or more graceful, than the personification of wis dom, in the Proverbs of Solomon? She is not only the guide of life, the parent of arts, honours, and riches, the source of true felicity; but the eternal daughter of the Omnipotent Creator and Father of all, and the participant of the Divine counsels, Prov. viii. 22—31. See also Habakkuk iii. 5. Isa. v. 14. Hos. xiii. 14. and 1 Cor. xv. 54.1 Milton, speaking of the eating of the forbidden fruit, says, Earth trembled from her entrails, as again BRY

In pangs, and nature gave a second groan:

Sky lowered, and muttering thunder, some sad drops
Wept, at completing of the mortal sin.

Again, the angel describing to Adam, a large hospital, or lazar-house:

Dire was the tossing, deep the groans; Despair »
Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch;
And over them triumphant Death his dart
Shook, but delayed to strike.

0790

The following passage is a beautiful instance of the proper use of this figure.

[ocr errors]

Go to your NATURAL RELIGION; lay before her MAHOMET, and his disciples, arrayed in armour and blood; riding in triumph over the spoils of thousands, and tens of thousands, who fell by his victorious sword, Shew her the cities which he set in flames, the countries which he ravaged aud destroyed, and the miserable distress of all the inhabitants of the earth. When she has viewed him in this scene, carry her into his retirements; shew her the prophet's chamber; his concubines and wives; let her see his adultery, and hear him allege revelation, and his divine commission, to justify his lust and oppression. When she is tired with this scene, then shew her the blessed JESUS, humble and meek, doing good to all the souls of men; patiently instructing, both the ignorant and perverse. Let her see HIM in his most retired privacies; let her follow HIM to the Mount, and hear his devotions and supplications to his GOD. Carry her to his table, to view his poor fare, and hear his heavenly discourse. Let

1

her see him injured, but not provoked: let her attend him to the tribunal, and consider the patience with which he endured the scoffs and reproaches of his enemies. Lead her to his cross, and let her view him in the agonies of death, and hear his last prayer for his persecutors, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do! When Natural Religion has viewed both, ask, Which is the Prophet of God? But her answer we have already had, when she saw part of this scene, through the eyes of the centurion, who attended at the cross. By him she spoke, and said, Truly this man was the Son of God.' Sherlock's Discourses, i. 271.*

3. In an Apostrophe, the speaker interrupts the current of his discourse, and addresses some person, dead or absent, or some object, as if that person or object were actually before him, 2 Sam. i. 24. Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul; and ver. 26, I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan. Jer. xxii. 29. O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord. See Gen. xlix. 17, 18. Nehem. vi.' 9. Ps. exlviii. 7—10. Joel ii. 22. Micah. vi. 7. Isa. i. 2. Cicero, Philip. xiv. cap. 12. when speaking in praise of Pompey, says, I call upon you, mute regions, you, most distant countries, you, seas, havens, islands, and shores :-for, what coast, what land, what place is there, in which the lively traces of his courage, humanity, greatness, and wisdom, are not extant?”

O woods, O fountains, hillocks, dales, and bow'rs,
With other echo late, I taught your shades

To answer, and resound far other song.

MILTON'S PAR. LOST, x. 854.

4. Antithesis, is the art of contrasting two different ob jects, so as mutually to place each in the strongest light, and by this means, give additional effect to a sentence, and make a lasting impression on the hearer. In Lam, iv. 5. Jeremiah tells us, that they that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets; and they that were brought up in scarlet, embrace dunghills. And again, ver. 7. Her Nazarites (of Zion) he adds, were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk; they were more ruddy in body than ru

* For nnmerous examples of personification, see Aikin's Essays, named (in p. 22. note.)

bies, their polishing was of sapphire; their visage is blacker than coal: they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaves to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick. In 2 2 Cor. iv. 1. there is a beautiful contrast. For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. See Job xxix. 2. 7, xxx. 1. 9. Ps. 1. 3 xvii. 13—15. lxxiii, 18. 23. Mal. iv. 1, 2.2 Cor. iv. 17. vi. 4. 8-10. MR. BURKE, in a speech delivered at Bristol, in the year 1780, has the following beautiful exemplification of this figure. Speaking of the benevolent HOWARD, he says, he visited all Europe, not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces, or the stateliness of temples; not to form a scale of the curiosity of modern art; not to collect medals, or to collate manuscripts; but to dive into the depths of dungeons; to plunge into the infection of hospitals; to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain; to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt; to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to visit the forsaken, and to compare and collate the distresses of ALL MEN IN ALL COUNTRIES.

5. Climax, the last figure to be noticed, is (1.) when the word or expression which concludes the first member of a period, begins the second, and so on in gradation, every member making a distinct sense, and taking its rise from the one before it, till the argument and period be beautifully finished. (2.) When the object or circumstance is most conspicuously placed, and when, by a gradual rise of one circumstance above another, our ideas are raised to the highest pitch, 2 Pet. i. 5. And besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly-kindness; and to brotherly-kindness, charity. See also Hos. ii. 21. Rom. v. 3. viii. 29, 30. x. 14, 15. Pope, What is every

in one of his letters to ter Atterbury, says,

year of a wise man's life, but a censure or critic [critique] jon the past? Those whose date is the shortest, live long enough to laugh at one half of it: the boy despises the infant, the man the boy, the philosopher both, and the Christian all. A celebrated Scottish lawyer in his charge to the jury, in the case of a woman, accused of murdering

[ocr errors]
« ÎnapoiContinuă »