fw_M ENGLISH COMPOSITION EHETOEIC MANUAL. BY ALEXANDER BAIN, M.A., PKOFESSOB OF LOGIC IN THE FNITEKSITT OF ABEEDEEK. AMERICAN EDITION, REVISED. NEW YORK : D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 443 & 445 BKOADTVAY. 1867. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S66, by D. APPLETON & CO., In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. PREFACE Numerous attempts have been made, and are still making, to methodize instruction in English Compo- sition. In these attempts, two distinct efforts are made for the benefit of the pupils ; to cultivate in them a co- pious fund of expression, and to render more delicate their discrimination of good and ill effects. As regards increasing the pupils' fund of expression, the English teacher can do comparatively little. The reason is obvious. The command of language is a grand total, resulting from the practice of a life ; a small frac- tion of that total is all that can grow up within the limits of a Course of English Composition. "With respect to the other aim — the discrimination between good and bad in expression — the case is differ- ent. Much of the necessary instruction can be con- densed into principles, and may be impressed by care- fully chosen examples. The teacher is here a trainer, and can impart in a short compass, what, without him, would be acquired slowly, if at all. It is this, accord- ln »b r ) that I account his principal vocation. 4: PKEFACE. All the principles and rules of composition that seem to me capable of affording aid or direction in the art, I have endeavored to bring together, omitting the notice of such technical terms as are of little practical use. The fulfilment of this design has ended in a work more closely allied to Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric, Blair's Lectures, and "Whately's Rhetoric, than to the majority of recent works on English Composition. I have divided the subject of Composition into two Parts : first, what pertains to Composition in general ; and secondly, what is special to each of the five leading Kinds of Composition, — namely, Description, Narration, Exposition, Oratory, and Poetry. Under Part First, the Figures of Speech are dis- cussed. The leading Qualities of Style are next ex- plained, and the conditions that they depend on stated. Under the same Part, I have laid down the principles governing the structure of the Sentence and the Para- graph. I attach great importance to these principles. The Second Part comprises the Kinds of Compo- sition. The subject of Description is perhaps the one that most signally attests the utility of Rhetorical precepts. In delineating any complicated object, there is a well- defined method ; which being attended to, the most ordi- nary mind may attain success, and being neglected, the greatest genius will fail. Narrative includes the laws of Historical Compo- sition, and these I have dwelt upon with some minute- ness. PREFACE. 5 Exposition belongs to Science, and to all information in the gnise of general principles. The methods to be observed in rendering expository style as easy as the subjects will allow, are worthy of a full consideration. Oratory, or Persuasion, is the original subject of the Rhetorical art, and its rules were highly elaborated in an- cient times. It presents great difficulties to the teacher. Besides the wide range of the matters involved in per- suasive address, there is a complication with the art of Proof, or Logic, that could not be relieved, until Logic itself was put on the more comprehensive basis given to it in the system of John Stuart Mill. Poetry demands a full share of attention, both on its own account, and also as supplementary to the other departments, all which cherish, as a secondary aim, matters of interest to human feeling, while these are a primary aim in poetry. In conclusion, I may state what I consider the best mode of employing such a work as the present in tuition. The rules and principles are accompanied with ex- amples ; the number of these is still farther increased by the Analyzed Extracts in the Appendix. It is recom- mended that, in the course of the pupil's reading, the principles should be applied to point out the merits and demerits of select passages. A reading book may be used for the purpose. To obtain suitable exercises for practice in writing English, is a prime consideration with the teacher. Many kinds of exercises have been suggested ; and 6 PKEFACE. there must always be a difference of opinion as to the most suitable. The writing of Themes involves the burden of finding matter as well as language ; and be- longs rather to classes in scientific or other departments, than to a class in English composition. The matter should in some way or other be supplied, and the pupil disciplined in giving it expression. I know of no better method than to prescribe passages containing good mat- ter, but in some respects imperfectly worded, to be amended according to the laws and the proprieties of style. Our older writers might be extensively, although not exclusively, drawn upon for this purpose. Another exercise is the conversion of Poetry into Prose. Much value is also attached to Abridging or Summarizing ; and this might be coupled with the opposite exercise of filling up and expanding brief sketches. The sustained practice of ''Rhetorical parsing, or the applying of the designations, principles, and rules of Ehetoric, to authors studied, whether in English or in other languages, would eventually form, in the mind of the pupil, an abiding ideal of good composition. Aberdeen, March, I860. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE Definition and Divisions of Rhetoric 19 PAET I. STYLE IN GENERAL. CHAPTER I. FIGUEES OF SPEECH. 1. The Figure of Speech defined, 20 2. Figures having reference to the Operations of the Human Under- standing, '. 20 FIGUEES FOUNDED OX SIMILARITY. 3. The intellectual power of Similarity explained, 22 OP SIMILITUDES GENERALLY. 4. The tracing of Resemblances an avocation of the human mind, ... 22 5. Comparisons addressed to the Understanding, 23 6. The things compared must be different in kind, 23 7. Comparisons addressed to the Feelings, 24. 8. Comparisons with a mixed effect, 24 9. Picturesque Comparisons, 25 10. Comparisons causing agreeable Surprise, 25 11. Requisites of Comparisons to aid the Understanding, 25 12. Requisites of those addressed to the Feelings, 26 13. Necessity of Novelty, .^ 26 Necessity of Harmony, 27 14. Figures of Similarity having no effect, 27 15. Figures of Resemblance co-extensive with human knowledge,. ... 27 SIMILE, OR COMPARISON*. 16. Simile defined and exemplified, 29 METAPUOR. 17. Metaphor defined and exemplified, 30 18. Personifying Metaphors, 31 19. Metaphors increase the names of a language, 31 20. Metaphors express the more hidden operations of the mind, 32 8 CONTENTS. PAGE 21. Metaphors may lose their figurative character, 32 22. Faults special to Metaphor : — (1) The mixed Metaphor ; (2) The Straining of a Metaphor ; (3) Excess of Metaphors, 32 PERSONIFICATION. 23. Highest degree of Personification, 34 24. Inferior degree, 36 25. Advantages of our language in Personification, 36 26. Interest attaching to Personification 36 ALLEGORY — FABLE — PARABLE. 27. Allegory defined and exemplified, 3*7 28. The Fable, 38 29. The fictitious Example, 38 30. The Parables of the Bible, 38 REMAINING FIGURES OF SIMILARITY. 31. Certain kinds of Synecdoche, 39 Exercise on Figures of Similarity, 40 FIGURES OF CONTIGUITY. 32. Resolvable principally into Metonymy and Synecdoche, 41 33. Metonymies classified, % 42 34. Forms of Synecdoche, 43 35. The Transferred Epithet, 45 FIGURES OF CONTRAST. 36. Contrast a Fundamental Law of the Mind, 45 37. The Antithesis proper, 46 38. Secondary forms of Antithesis, 47 39. Proper employment of Antithesis, 49 Exercise on Figures of Contiguity and Contrast, 49 OEPIGRAM. 40. Defined as, in most instances, Apparent Contradiction,. 51 41 . Epigram of the Identical Assertion, 52 42. The Seeming Irrelevance, 53 43. A familiar saying turned into a new form,. ; 53 44. T~ie arrestive conjunctions are epigrammatic, 54 45. The Pun, 54 HYPERBOLE. 46. Origin of the tendency to Exaggeration, 65 47. Limits of Hyperbole, 5 ^ 48. The Extreme Case in exposition, 5 ' CLIMAX. 49. Climax defined and exemplified, 6 ^ CONTENTS. PAGE INTERROGATION. 50. Interrogation denned and exemplified, 59 EXCLAMATION. 61. Use of Exclamation, 60 APOSTROPHE. 52. Forms of the Apostrophe, 60 53. Vision, 61 TNNUENDO, OR LNSLNUATION. 54. Meaning of Innuendo, 61 EBONY. 55. Expresses the contrary of what is meant. — Sarcasm defined, 62 56. Other Figures of the old Rhetoricians :— Ellipsis, Asyndeton, Hy- perbaton, 63 Exercise on Figures 64 CHAPTER II. EXERCISE ON FIGURES.— NUMBER OF -WORDS. 57. Figures of Speech, 66 58. Brevity a virtue of language, 66 59. Sources of Brevity, 66 60. Effects gained by "diffuseness, 67 61. Violations of Brevity.— I. Tautology, 68 62. II. Redundancy, 70 63. III. Circumlocution. — The Paraphrase, 71 CHAPTER HI. ARRANGEMENT OF WORDS. 64. The grammatical order frequently departed from, 73 65. Qualifying words should precede the object qualified, 75 66. Words nearly related in thought should be placed together, 76 CHAPTER IV. THE QUALITIES OF STYLE. 67. Enumeration of the leading qualities, 78 SIMPLICITY. 68. Simplicity defined, 79 69. Simplicity in Terms : — Xames of common things, 79 Names of things palpable and conceivable, 80 The Individual and Concrete, as opposed to the General and Abstract, 80 1* 10 CONTENTS. PAGE 70. The Abstract Noun, 81 71. A series of Abstract Terms difficult, 82 72. Exceptions, 82 73. Simplicity of Structure, 83 74. The avoiding of a complication of Negatives, 83 CLEAENESS. 75 Opposed to Obscurity and Vagueness, 84 76. Management of ambiguous words, 84 77. The same word not to recur in two senses, 85 78. Parallelism in drawing comparisons, 86 79. Use of words in their well-understood meanings, 86 STEENGTH. 80. Strength the quality that gives the elation of Power, 86 81. Essential pleasure of Power, a rebound from Weakness, 88 82. Sympathy with Power in others, 88 83. Anger or Indignation allied to the Sublime, 89 84. Terror in its relations to Strength, or the Sublime, 89 85. Contemplation of Power in Nature, 90 86. Vocabulary of Strength, 90 87. Conditions of Strength in Composition : — Originality, 92 88. Harmony or Keeping, 93 89. Variety, or Alternation of Effects 94 90. Variety in Composition generally, „ 94 91. Avoiding the repetition of the same word, 94 92. Variety in the length and structure of Sentences, .*. 95 93. Variety in a long composition, 95 94. Contrast the extreme case of Variety, 95 95. Exciting effects should be relieved, 96 96. The Specific and Concrete a means of Strength, 96 97. Strength from Objectivity, 97 98. Importance of being easily understood, 97 99. Soaring, or taking a flight, 97 100. Strength in Scientific Composition, 97 101. Resources for causing strength, 98 102. The sublime of Nature extended by the Poet, 98 FEELING— PATHOS. 103. Tender Feeling allied to inactivity or repose, <= 99 104. Modes of awakening Tender Feeling, 99 Vocabulary of Tenderness, 101 105. Conditions similar to those of Strength, 101 106. Natural objects sometimes suggest Tenderness, 102 107. Examples of Pathos, 102 THE LUDICEOUS— HUMOE— WIT. 108. The Ludicrous defined, 104 109. Based on the degradation of some object possessing dignity, . . . 104 110. Laughter has two extremes : — Derision, 106 111. The genial extreme is Humor, 106 CONTENTS. 11 PAGE 112. Wit defined, 108 113. Wit combined with the Ludicrous, , 109 MELODY. 114. Involves the voice and the ear, 110 115. Letters of the alphabet in the order of easy pronunciation, 110 116. Abrupt consonants should alternate with rowels, Ill 117. A sharp and a flat mute difficult to combine, Ill 118. Cumulation of consonants harsh, Ill 119. Alternation of vowel and consonant in successive words, 112 120. Clash of vowels should be avoided, 112 121. Long vowels out of accent, 112 122. Varying the letters, 118 1 23. The succession of syllables, 113 124. The closing syllables of a sentence, 114 125. Variety of sound in composition generally, 115 Examples of the rules of melody, 115 HARMONY OF SOUND AND BENKEL 126. An example of the general Law of Harmony, 116 127. Imitation of Sounds, 116 128. Imitation of Movements, 117 129. Bulk expressed by slowness cf rhythm, 119 130. Expression of the Feelings or Passions, 119 TASTE— ELEGANCE— POLISH-REFINEMENT. 131. Meanings of Taste, 120 The Permanent and the Variable in Taste, 120 CHAPTER V. THE SENTENCE AND THE PAEAGEAPH. THE SENTENCE. 132. Grammatical laws of the Sentence, 122 133. Rhetorical division of Sentences. — The Period and the Loose Sentence, 122 134. The Participial construction in the Period,. 124 135. The periodic form favorable to Unity, 125 136. Short and Long Sentences, 125 137. The Balanced Sentence, 125 138. Balance aids the Memory, 120 139. Balance gives an agreeable Surprise, 123 140. Extreme form of the Balance, 127 141. Balance combined with Antithesis, 127 142. Balance with Obverse Iteration, 128 143. Balance with Epigram, 128 144. Pointed expression of difference, 12§ 145. Keeping up the same leading term,. 129 146. The Condensed Sentence, 129 12 CONTENTS. PAGE 147. The Condensed Sentence used for Comic effect, 130 148. The Pointed Style,...., 130 149. Requisites of the Sentence generally, 130 150. A conspicuous place to the Principal Subject : — (1.) In the be- ginning, 131 151. (2.) After an adverbial phrase or clause, 132 152. (3.) At the end, 133 153. The Predicate is also a principal part, 133 154. The places of emphasis for important words, 133 155. Unity of the Sentence, 135 156. Clauses united in a Sentence without breach of unity, 136 157. It is often requisite to include in a Sentence several distinct facts. — Examination of a Narrative Extract, 136 THE PARAGKAPH. 158. Paragraph denned, 142 159. Requisites in composition generally, 142 First requisite, Explicit Reference, 142 160. Use of the proper Conjunctions, 142 161. Cumulative Conjunctions, 142 162. Adversative Conjunctions, 143 163. Illative Conjunctions, 143 164. Phrases of reference, 144 165. Subordinating Conjunctions 144 166-170. Cases in which connecting words are unnecessary, 145 171. Demonstrative Phrases of reference, 146 172. Repetition in substance of what has been said, 147 173. Inversion with a view to reference, 147 174. De Quincey remarkable for explicit reference, 148 175. Second Requisite of the Paragraph. — The rule of Parallel Con- struction, 148 176. Third Requisite. — The opening sentence to indicate the subject of the Paragraph, 150 177. Fourth Requisite. — Freedom from dislocation, 151 178. Fifth Requisite. — Unity of the Paragraph, , 151 179. Sixth Requisite. — A due proportion between Principal and Sub- ordinate statements, 152 PART II. KINDS OF COMPOSITION. CHAPTER I. DESCRIPTION. 1. Complication demands an Art of Description, 153 2. First, — To combine with the Enumeration of the parts a Plan of the whole, 154 3. The Form, or Outline, may be the comprehensive plan, 154 4. The Magnitude to be also stated, 154 CONTENTS. 13 1>AGE 5. Some objects may be viewed as branching from a Centre, 154 6. Any feature may be chosen suggesting a comprehensive aspect. — Examples of the general rule, 155 7. Second. — The Description may be panoramic, 156 8. Third. — Description aided by Individuality, 15*7 9. Fourth. — Description by Associated Circumstances, 158 10. Associated human Feelings in Description, 159 11. The particulars of a Description may be mutually supporting,. ... 159 12. Description of Mind. — First, the proper vocabulary of Mind, 160 13. Intellectual Processes. — Examples of subjective description, 160 14. Second. — Feelings may be suggested by their Associations, 162 15. Description involved in all other kinds of Composition, 163 16. In Exposition or Science, 163 17. In Poetry. "What Descriptions may be undertaken by the poet,. 164 CHAPTER H. NAEEATIYE. 18. Narrative implies sequence or shifting of the scenes. Conditions to be observed, 166 19. First rule.— To follow the Order of Events, 167 20. Importance of Chronology, 167 21. A backward reference may be necessary, 168 22. Sometimes what is recent is best to start from, 169 23. Second. — The narrative of concurring streams of events. — A prin- cipal action and subordinates, 169 24. A comprehensive scheme possible in narrative, 170 25. Concurring streams of equal importance, 170 26. Contending parties. — Danger of stealthy transition, 171 27. Plurality of departments, 171 28. Third. — Relieving the detail bv Summaries, 172 29. Art of Abridgment, 173 30. Fourth. — The Explanatory Narrative, 174 31. Fifth. — The ends of Historical Composition. — Instruction, 174 32. Interest, or the gratification of the Feelings, 176 33. Sixth. — History based on Geography, 178 34. Seventh. — History a series of delineations with intermediate nar- rative, 178 35. A nation's existence analyzed into departments, 179 36. History involves the arts of Exposition and of Poetry, 183 37. Much of what has been said on History applies to Biography,.. . . 184 38. The Environment should be delineated, 184 39. The form of Narrative in Science, and in Poetry, 184 CHAPTER IH. EXPOSITION. 40. Applies to knowledge in the form of Science, 185 41. Chief attribute of Science, Generality, 185 42. Constituents of Science, *. 186 14 CONTENTS. PAGE 43. Whenever truth is expressed generally, we hare Science, 1 87 44. Clearness of statement presupposed, 1 87 45. Individual facts, by themselves, not peculiar to science, 188 46. First generalized element, the Notion, 188 47. Definition, 188 48. Defining by Particulars, 1S8 49. Defining by Antithesis or Contrast, 189 50. The two methods combined, 190 51. The Complex Notion Defined by Analysis. — The Verbal Definition, 190 52. The scholastic definition a form of Analysis, 192 53. The other methods superadded to Analysis, 192 54. The Proposition, or Principle, 193 55. Methods of expounding the Proposition. — Iteration, 193 56. There should always be one chief statement, 194 57. Obverse Iteration, 194 58. Advantages of the Obverse Statement, 195 59. The principal medium of Exposition is Examples, 196 60. Choice of Examples, '. . , 197 61. The particulars may precede the generality, 197 62. The Example in the form of the Extreme Case, 197 63. Principles embodied in Examples, 198 64. Unscientific generalities. — The popular Essay, 198 65. Delineation of Character, and Criticism, 199 66. Illustrations as distinguished from Examples, 199 67. The imparting of extended human interest to Science. — Plato, . . . 201 68. The choice of Examples and Illustrations with this view, 202 69. The conditions of the employment of Illustrations for expository ends, 203 70. Calling attention to Difficulties, 205 71. The Proof of a principle contributes to its exposition, 205 72. Inferences and Applications serve to elucidate principles, 207 73. The Expository Paragraph 208 74. Various forms of the Paragraph, 210 75. Management of novel terms, 211 76. Maxim of proceeding from the known to the unknown, 211 CHAPTER IV. PEE SUASION. 77. Persuasion defined, = 212 78. The Ends of Oratory, 212 79. Oratory of the Law Courts, 213 80. Political Oratory. — Argument and Exhortation, 213 81. Pulpit Oratory. — Cultivation of the Religious Feelings, 215 82. Moral Suasion, 215 83. Knowledge op the persons addressed. — Sources and extent of the knowledge required. — Consideration of men's ordinary max- ims and received opinions, 215 84. An orator has to overbear men's special views by means of larger principles of action, 219 85. Knowledge of a class or assemblage, 219 CONTENTS. 15 PAGE 83. Examples of the failure of great efforts of genius from unsuit- ability to the minds addressed — History of the abolition of the Censorship of the press in England, 220 87. Means of Persuasion, 223 83. A thorough knowledge of the subject a chief requisite. — Re- sources of language and illustration also requisite, 224 89. Different aspects of Persuasion, 22.3 90. Persuasion as based on Description, Narration, or Exposition,. . 226 .-< . i 91. Persuasion aided by all the arts that impress ideas,. 92. Persuasion by Argument, or Proof, 223 93. An Argument defined, 229 94. First requisite in Argument, certain admitted principles, 229 95. Second requisite, an admitted similarity between the principles and the point to be establishe 1, 229 96. Deductive Arguments, 230 97. Inductive Arguments, 231 98. Arguments from Analogy, 233 99. Probable Arguments. . .*. ■ 234 100. Devices for stifling Arguments, 236 101. How to arrange a Plurality of Arguments. — Stating them sep- arately, '...«/ 236 102. Number and Order of Arguments, 237 103. Refutation or Reply, 237 104. Setting forth all that is admitted on the other side, 237 105. Separating the arguments on the other side, 238 106. Refutation fellows' all the methods of Proof, 235 I 1 )?. Kind of Refutation called Argumentum ad hominem, 240 108. Exposure of defective Arguments from Analogy, 241 109. Debate often turns on opposing Probabilities, 242 110. Throwing the Burden of Proof on the other side, 242 111. Tactics of Debate, 243 112. Oratory of the Feelings. — Classes of human motives, 244 113. Address to the Feelings considered under three heads : — First, our own Pleasures and Pains considered as remote, 245 1 14. Secondly, Sympathy with the Pleasures and Pains of others, .... 248 115. Thirdly, the Emotion* and Passions : — Fear, Love, Vanity, and Pride, Anger, Ridicule, Fine Art Emotion, the Moral Senti- ment, 249 116. Management of the Feelings generally, 255 117. The Demeanor of the Speaker, 256 CHAPTER V. POETEY. 118. Previous references to Poetry, 257 119. Poetry a Fine Art, working by Language. — Pleasures of Fine Art generally, 257 120. Subjects and Form peculiar to Poetry. — Pure and mixed kinds,. 259 121. External Nature furnishes materials for Poetry, 260 122. Our interest in Humanity enters into Poetry,. 262 123. Concreteness and Combination are characteristic of Poetry, 263 16 CONTENTS. PAGE 124. Harmony is an essential of every work of Art. — Harmonies in Poetry, 264 125. The Ideal is sought after, 267 126. The Imitation of Nature imposes limitations on Poetry, 269 127. Plot Interest, 270 128. Painful effects should be redeemed. — Tragedy, 271 129. Metre— its uses, 272 SPECIES OF POETET. 130. Species classified, „ 274 LYRIC POETRY. 131. Lyric poetry an effusion of some strong feeling, 274 132. Lyric poems classified : — 274 (1.) The Song, 275 I. The Second Song, 275 II. The Secular Song — its varieties, 275 (2.) The Ode, 276 (3.) The Elegy, 277 (4.) The Sonnet, 277 (5.) The Simple or nondescript Lyric, 277 EPIC POETRY. 133. The peculiarities of the Epic, 277 134. Epic poems classified : — 278 (1.) The great Epic— Examples, 278 (2.) The Romance, 279 (3.) The Tale, 279 (4.) The Ballad, 279 (5.) The Metrical History, 280 (6.) The Mixed Epic, 280 (7.) The Pastoral Idyll, &c, 280 (8.) The Prose Fiction, 281 DRAMATIC POETRY. 135. The Drama constructed for acting on the stage, 281 Nature of the dramatic interest, 282 136. Division of the Drama, 282 (1.) Tragedy, 282 (2.) Comedy. — Its various forms 283 Didactic Poetry. — Satiric Poetry, 2S4 VERSIFICATION. 137. The metrical features of English poetry, 285 METRE. 138. English metre depends upon accent, .- . . 285 The position of the accent gives rise to five measures, 285 CONTENTS. IT PAGE 139. Examples of the different Measures, 286 Dissyllabic Measures (Trochaic, Iambic), 286 Trisyllabic Measures (Dactylic, Amphibrachic, Anapaestic), . . 287 Alliteration. 140. Alliteration is of the nature of Metre, 28S Alliteration in later English poetry, 2S9 Rhyme. 141. Rhyme is also metrical in the wide sense, 289 The three Conditions of perfect Rhyme, 290 Assonance, 290 KINDS OF VERSE. 142. The Elements that make up the kinds of Yerse, 291 Blank or Unrhymed Yerse, 291 143. Rhymed Yerse, 292 Iambic Octosyllabics, 292 Heroic Couplet, 292 Elegiac Metre, 292 Rhyme Royal, 292 Ottava Eyma, 293 Sonnet, 293 Spenserian Stanza, 293 Ballad, Metre, , 294 Trochaic Combination, 294 APPENDIX. EXTRACTS ANALYZED. I. Forbes on the Glacier. — Allegory, Comparisons, Strength, Climax, Laws of the Sentence and the Paragraph, 295 II. Locke on Memory. — Figures of Similitude, Exposition re- lieved by appeal to Feeling, the Sentence, 297 III. Dr. Campbell's allegorical comparison of Probability and Plausibility. — Laws of the Sentence and the Paragraph,. . . 299 IY. Cowley on Cromwell. — Interrogation, Strength, &c, 303 «"- Y. Addison on the Pleasures of the Imagination. — Melody, the Sentence and the Paragraph, Climax, &c, 304 VI. Robert Hall's Reflections on War.— The Sentence, Pathos, Strength, Climax, &c, 308 ~Yn. Gibbon's Description of Arabia. — Sentence, Paragraph, De- scription, 313 VIII. Examples of Description from Sir Walter Scott, 316 IX. Carlyle's Description of Silesia, 319 . X. Narrative Extract from Robertson's Charles V., 321 18 CONTENTS. PAGE XI. Hobbes on Laughter. — Sentence, Paragraph, Exposition, 324 XII. Dryden's criticisms on Ben Jonson and Shakespeare. — Sen- tence, Paragraph, Exposition, 327 XIII. Expository Extract from Mr. Samuel Bailey. — Application of Principles, 330 ■"* XIV. Expository and moralizing passage from Macaulay, 333 XV. Confused chain of reasoning from Campbell's Rhetoric, 335 XVI. Passage from Adam Smith. — Exposition applied to Moral Suasion, 336 XVII. Oratorical passage from Demosthenes on the Crown, 338 XVIII. Campbell's Pleasures of Hope. — Passage examined for Poetic Figures and Qualities, 338 XIX. Coleridge's Mont Blanc. — Poetic rendering of Nature, 341 XX. Byron's Thunder Storm. — The Impressiveness of Action,. . . . 342 XXI. Dyer's Grongar Hill. — Poetical Description, 343 XXII. Thomson's Seasons. — The Golden Age, exemplifying the Ideal in Poetry, 343 EHE T O EI 0. Ehetoeic discusses the means whereby language, spoken or written, may be rendered effective. There are three principal ends in speaking, — to in- form, to persuade, to please. They correspond to the three departments of the human mind, the Understand- ing, the "Will, and the Feelings. The means being to some extent different for each, they are considered under separate heads. But as there are various matters pertaining to all modes of address, it is convenient to divide the entire subject into the two following parts: — Part First, which relates to Style generally, embraces the following topics : — I. The Figures of Speech. II. The Number of Words. III. The Arrangement of Words. IY. The Qualities of Style. V. The Sen- tence and the Paragraph. Part Second treats of the different Kinds of Compo- sition. Those that have for their object to inform the Un- dekstaot)ing, fall under three heads — Description, Nar- ration, and Exposition. The means of influencing the Well are given under one head, Persuasion. The em- ploying of language to excite pleasurable Feelings, is one of the chief characteristics of Poetry. The Will can be moved only through the Under- standing or through the Feelings. Hence there are really but two Khetorical ends. PART I. STYLE IN GENERAL, CHAPTER I. THE FIGURES OF SPEECH. 1. A Figure of Speech is a deviation from the plain and ordinary mode of speaking, with a view to greater effect. When, instead of saying, " that is very strange," we exclaim " how strange ! " we nse a figure. " Now is the winter of our discontent," is figurative ; the word " winter " is diverted from signifying a season of the year, to express a condition of the human feelings. The ancient Rhetoricians distinguished between Figures and Tropes. A Figure, says Quintilian, is a form of speech differ- ing from the ordinary mode of expression ; as in the first ex- ample given above. A Trope is the conversion of a word from its proper signification to another, in order to give force, as in the second example above. The distinction is more in appear- ance than in substance, and has no practical value. The Figures are classed under a variety of names. The most common are Simile, Metaphor, Allegory, Antithesis or Contrast, Metonymy, Synecdoche, Epigram, Hyperbole, Inter- rogation, Exclamation, Apostrophe, Climax, Irony. 2. Several of the more important Figures have ref- erence to the operationsof the human Understanding, or Intellect, and may be classified accordingly. All FIGURES OF SPEECH. 21 our intellectual powers are reducible to three simple modes of working. The first is Discrimination, or the Feeling of Difference, Contrast, Relativity. It means that the mind is affected by- change, as in passing from rest to motion, from cold to heat, from light to dark ; and that, the greater and the more sudden the change, the more strongly is it affected. The figure de- nominated Antithesis, or Contrast, derives its force from this fact. The second power is called Similarity, or the Feeling of Agreement. This signifies that, when like objects come under our notice, we are impressed by the circumstance, as when we see the resemblance of a child to its parent. It signifies farther that we are made to understand things better, and to feel them more strongly, by means of other similar things. We are en- abled to know something of the Desert of Sahara, by being told that it resembles a sea of sand. The Figures named Simile, Metaphor, Allegory, are modes of increasing the force of style in this way. The third power of the Intellect is Retentiveness, or Ac- quisition. The ability to retain successive impressions without confusion, and to bring them up afterwards, distinguishes mind ; it is a power familiarly known as Memory. Now, the chief way in which memory works is this : impressions occurring to- gether, become associated together, as sunrise with daylight ; and, when we are made to think of one, we are reminded of the accompaniments. We cannot think of the sun's rising, without remembering daylight, and the other circumstances that go along with it. Hence, things contiguously placed are associated mentally ; and one of the many consequences is that we often name a thing by some of its adjuncts, as when we say " the throne " for the sovereign, " gold " for wealth. Such is the nature of Metonymy. Of the three powers of Intellect now named — Discrimina- tion or Contrast, Similarity, and Retentiveness; — the second, Similarity, is most fruitful in figures, and may be considered first. 22 FIGURES OF SPEECH, FIGUEES FOUNDED ON SIMILARITY. 3. The intellectual power named Similarity, or Feel- ino* of Agreement, is the chief inventive power of the mind. By it similitudes are brought np to the view. When we look ont upon a scene of nature, we are re- minded of other similar scenes that we have formerly known. This power of like to recall like (there being also diversity) varies in different individuals. The fact is shown by the great abundance of comparisons that occur to some men ; for exam- ple, the great poets. Homer, speaking of the descent of Apollo from Olympus, says, " He came like night" The eloquence of Ulysses is described by the help of a similitude : — " Soft as the fleeces of descending snoics, The copious accents fall with easy art ; Melting they fall, and sink into the heart ! " The Figures of Similarity are these : — 1. Simile, or Com- parison. 2. Metaphor. 3. Personification. 4. Allegory. 5. Certain forms of Synecdoche. We shall first remark on the features common to them all. OF SIMILITUDES GENERALLY. 4. The tracing of resemblances among the objects and events of the world, is a constant avocation of the human mind. In Science, general notions are classed together on xne basis of some feature that they possess in common. We identify a great number of objects on the property of roundness, all else being different. Some sciences are expressly styled Comparative ; as, Com- parative Anatomy, Comparative Grammar. The purpose of the former is to find out the points of community or likeness in the structure of Animals : the latter shows the similarities occurring in the midst of diversities in Languages. SIMILITUDES. 23 Reasoning is often based on the similarity or identity of two or more things. When we infer that the men now alive will die, it is because of their likeness in constitution to those that went before them. This is called reasoning by Analogy. A comparison is often intended to serve for an argument, as well as for an illustration. The following is an example : — " It is remarked by Anatomists, that the nutritive quality is not the only requisite in food; — that a certain degree of distention of the stomach is required, to enable it to act with its full powers : — and that it is for this reason hay or straw must be given to horses, as well as corn, in order to supply the necessary bulk. Something analogous to this takes place with respect to the generality of minds ; which are incapable of thoroughly digesting and assimila- ting what is presented to them, however clearlv, in a small corn- pas's." (^nately.) 5. In all departments of composition addressed to the UiTDEESTAirDmG — in Description, Narration, and Exposition — Similitudes are made use of to render the subjects more intelligible. If, from some cause or other, a subject is but dimly con- ceived, one mode of assisting the mind, is to bring forward something of the same kind that we already understand. Our knowledge of the familiar throws light upon the unfamiliar ob- ject. Thus, the action of the heart, which is concealed from our view, may be made intelligible by comparison to a force- pump for supplving water to a town. An event in ancient his- tory may be illustrated by something that has happened in more recent times. A man's character is brought home to us, when likened to that of some one that we already know. TTe often make subjects mutually illustrative through their com- munity of nature ; thus Painting and Poetry, as Fine Arts, elucidate each other. 6. A Eesemblance is not a Figure of Speech, unless the things compared be different in kind. The comparison of Napoleon to Caesar is literal and not figurative ; the subjects are of the same kind. The compari- son of a great conqueror to a destructive conflagration, or a 24: FIGURES OF SPEECH. tempest, is a figure. The things compared are different in na- ture, although sufficiently similar to render the one illustrative of the other. 7. In compositions addressed to the Feelings — Ora- tory and Poetry — resemblances are songht ont to give greater intensity or impressiveness to the meaning. For this purpose, the comparison should be to something that excites the feelings more strongly than the thing com- pared. Thus, Sir Philip Sidney, in endeavoring to give a lively idea of the rousing effect of the ballad of Chevy Chase, says, " it stirs the heart like the sound of a trumpet:' Chaucer's description of the Squire, contains several com- parisons for raising the feelings : — " Embrouded was he, as it were a mede, All full offrcshe flour es white and rede ; Singing he was, or floyting all the day ; He was as freshe as is ike moneth of May? So, the following simile from the Odyssey is calculated to give a more lively sense of the speaker's sentiment of venera- tion : — " I follow behind, as in the footsteps of a God." Again, "Justice," says Aristotle, "is more glorious than 'the Eastern Star or the Western Star." An example of a simile elevating a common subject to a poetic character, occurs in Tennyson's description of the miller in " Enoch Arden." " Him, like the working bee in blossom dust, Blanched with his mill, they found." Of the examples of the Simile on page 29, the 5th ap- peals to the feelings almost exclusively; the 1st and 6th are addressed to the undertanding ; while the rest fall under a class to be mentioned presently, § 10. 8. Many comparisons have a mixed effect, partly as- sisting tbe understanding, and partly giving rise to feel- ing. Demosthenes likened the statesmanship of such politicians as his rival ^Eschines to old sores in the body, which come out SIMILITUDES. 25 into painful prominence, when the general health happens to be disturbed. Extract I. (Appendix) may be referred to as exemplifying mixed effects. In not a few instances, even in Expository Composition, the understanding is sacrificed to the feelings. (See Extract II.) 9. Some Similitudes enable us to picture an object vividly to the mind, and are called, on that account, picturesque / as in Chaucer's Squire, " "With lockes crull, as they were laide in pressed These comparisons are much used in Poetiy, and m the more poetical forms of Descriptive and Narrative composition. 10. Original comparisons, besides having the effects just stated, cause an agreeable suepeise, and are intro- duced into composition with that view. A comparison that is new and not obvious, strikes us with a pleasurable flash, even although contributing little, either to elucidate a subject, or to excite livelier feelings in connection with it. In the following instance, the agreeable effect arises, partly from the elevation of the subject (See Qualities of Style, Strength), and partly from the detection of a certain resemblance between two things lying remote in nature : — " The actions of princes are like those great rivers, whose course every one beholds, but their springs have been seen by but few." "When comparisons have no other effect than the pleasure of surprise, they are often termed fanciful. This indicates one of the meanings of Fancy. Luxuriant composition, as the poetry of Shelley or Keats, is apt to abound in this species of effect. 11. I. When Figures of Similarity are employed to give intelligibility and clearness — that is, to aid the Understanding — they must satisfy the following condi- tions : — 2 26 FIGURES OF SPEECH. (1.) The resemblance should turn on the relevant cir- cumstance. (2.) The comparison should be more intelligible to those addressed than the thing compared. (3.) The accompanying circumstances should not be such as to distract the mind from the real point. This is the most common fault in the use of figures of simi- larity, and is most likely to occur when they are most pro- fusely employed. 12. II. "With a view to heighten the Feelings, the conditions are these : — (1.) The figure employed should be more impressive than the plain form of expression. (2.) The degree of elevation should be within the bounds that the hearer can tolerate. (See Hyperbole.) (3.) The similitude should be neither obvious nor trite. Some degree of novelty, originality, or rarity, is essential to any powerful effect. (4.) A mere intellectual comparison should not be tendered for an emotional one.* On the other hand, the absence of intellectual similarity is consistent with emotional keeping. Hence the admissibility of the following : — " The noble sister of Poplfcola, The moon of Rome ; chaste as the icicle That's curdled by the frost from purest snow An d hangs on Dian's temple." 13. III. To render comparison, as such, a source of pleasure, the following points must be attended to : — (1.) Novelty, originality, or freshness, is still more requisite than in the previous case. * The profuse cniployment of intellectual similitudes without emotional keeping, is the peculiarity of the class of poets designated by Johnson as "metaphysical" (Life of Cowley). For a precise discrimination of the characteristics of this class, see Masscn's Life of Milton (VoL I. p. 441). CONDITIONS OF EFFECTIVE COMPARISON. 27 (2.) There should be a harmony between the things compared, and no distasteful accompaniments. The following well-known passage from Lucretius contains a fine harmony, and also a circumstance that jars on the mind : — " Sweet it is, when the winds are agitating the waters on a wide sea, to witness from the land the spectacle of another's distress; not because it is agreeable to us that any one should suffer, but because it is pleasant to behold the ills ourselves are free from. Sweet also is it to look upon the mighty encounters of war spread over the plains, without sharing the danger. But nothing is sweeter than to occupy the well-girt serene temple raised by the learning of the wise, whence we may look down upon others and see them straying and wandering, rivals in intellect, and in the pride of birth, striving night and day by surpassing labor to rise to wealth and to win dominion. 1 ' The two comparisons quoted are in full harmony with the situation to be illustrated ; there is one pervading emotion — the grateful feeling of security from visible woes. But it jars on our sympathies to represent the misery of others as our delight ; and the clause of explanation, so awkward in a poem, does not redeem the discord. Better to have simply compared the three situations, without giving any name to the feeling. " Like a man witnessing from the land the strugoles of the mariner with the storm, or like one viewing the shock of war from a safe distance, is he that occupies the temple raised by wisdom, and looks down upon the erring crowd beneath." 14. Many figures of similarity are to be fonnd in literature that fail to yield any of the results just named. It would not be easy to attribute any effect to such as the following from Bacon : — " Certainly it is heaven on earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth." The old writers abound in comparisons equally unmeaning and insipid. 15. The sources of Figures of Resemblance are co- extensive with human knowledge. An idea may be formed of the wide range of figurative 28 FIGURES OF SPEECH. comparison by glancing at some of the objects to which it has been extended. Natural Agents : — Gravity, Heat, Light, Electricity, Magnetism, affinity, attraction, repulsion, force, solution, diffusion, expansion, matter, solid, liquid, gas. Celestial Bodies and Operations : — Sun, moon, stars, orbits, eclipses, cycles, seasons, nebula?, galaxies. Terrestrial Objects on a grand scale : — Winds, storms, clouds, rain, thunder, lightning, oceans, shores, tides, waves, continents, plains, mountains, villages, rivers, floods, forests, deserts, sands, swamps, rocks, strata. Minerals and their Properties : — Stone, granite, flint, metal, diamond, ruby, emerald, gold, silver, iron, brass, crystal, transpa- rency, brilliancy, lustre, opaque, hard, rough, smooth, symmetrical. Vegetation: — Seed, root, stem, branch, flower, bud, fruit, leaf, growth, sap, ripeness, decay, excrescence. The "rose, thorn, lily, oak, fungus, upas-tree. Animal Life : — Organic processes, and names of parts, as in plants: — Birth, procreation, health, disease, food, nourishment, bone, sinew, heart, head, eyes, tongue, foot, arm, breath, digestion. Special Animals : — Lion, tiger, elephant, dog, fox, eagle, lark, nightingale, parrot, serpent, viper, shark, worm, grub, oyster, bee, ant, spider, butterfly. Operations of Human Industry : — (Agriculture), shepherd, flocks, herds, dig, till, plough, manure, water, sow, reap, harvest, thresh, winnow, prune, graft. (Mining), vein, ore. (Building), foundation, stone, cement, wall, roof, door, house, palace, temple, pyramid. (Seamanship), launch, set sail, chart, steer, compass, tack, breeze, wreck, founder. (War), army, array, battle, conquest, defeat, sword, arms, shot, broadside, parry, strategy, generalship. (Trade), buy, sell, import, traffic, capital, interest, borrow, credit, security, market, goods, exchange, money, currency, weight, meas- ure. (Manufactures), hammer, forge, shape, carve, cut, joint, dovetail, spin, weave, embroider, tinsel. Government: — Sovereign, king, rule, court, regulate, minister, judge, law. Social Relations : — Father, mother, friend, neighbor, companion, society, communion, wedlock. Social Intercourse : — Road, highway, carriage, conveyance, canal, harbor, haven, post, letter, arts of writing and printing. Medicine :— Physic, pill, unguent, syrup, purge, plaster, bleed, blister, disease, symptom, remedy, fever, inflammation, pulse, scar, sore, ache, wound, delirium, heart-burn, dropsy, gangrene. Teaching : — Master, pupil, lesson, school. Science : — Sum, fraction, equation, equivalent, theorem, axiom, postulate, definition, demonstrate, induction. Fine Arts : — Melody, harmony, discord, dance, rhythm, paint, color, sculpture, engrave, carve. SIMILE. 29 Religion: — God, angel, offering, sacrifice, atonement, prayer, propitiation, intercession, sacrament, priest, -worship, bible, revela- tion, inspiration, divine, heaven, hell. Recreations : — Games, sports, cards, dice, chess, counters, hunt, snare, trap, decoy, angle, hook, bait. Historical Allusions : — The geese in the capitol, the gordian knot, crossing the Rubicon, magna charta. Customs of Nations : — Avatar, Juggernaut, palaver, ordeal. Feelings and Operations of the Mind : — Sweet, soft, harsh, sour, charm, rejoice, kiss, laugh, smile, frown, angry, loving, relent, dis- dain. SIMILE, OE COMPAEISON. 16. Simile, or Comparison, consists in likening one thing to another formally or expressly. " As the stars, so shall thy seed be." " The condemnation of Socrates took him away in his full grandeur and glory, like the setting of a tropical sun." The following are further examples : — (1.) " True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who hare learnt to dance." (2.) " We have often thought that the public mind in our coun- try resembles that of the sea when the tide is rising. Each succes- sive wave rushes forward, breaks, and rolls back; but the great flood is steadily coming on." (3.) " Nothing is more dangerous to reason than the flights of imagination, and nothing has been the occasion of more mistakes among philosophers. Men of bright fancies may, in this respect, be compared to those angels whom the Scriptures represent as cov- ering their eyes with their wings." (4.) " I have ventured, Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, This many summers in a sea of glory." (5.) "It is on the death-bed, on the couch of sorrow and of pain, that the thought of one purely virtuous action is like the shadow of a lofty rock in the desert — like the light footsteps of that little child who continued to dance before the throne of the unjust king, when his guards had fled, and his people had forsaken him — like the single thin stream of light which the unhappy cap- tive has at last learned to lore— like the soft sigh before the breeze that wafts the becalmed vessel and her famished crew to the haven where they would be. " (6.) " the illusion that great men and great events came oftener in early times than now, is partly due to historical perspective. As 30 FIGURES OF SPEECH. in a range of equidistant columns, the farthest off look the closest; so the conspicuous ohjects of the past seem more thickly clustered, the more remote they are." The characteristic effects of these examples have been given by anticipation (p. 24). The terms "simile" and "comparison" are sometimes con- sidered as slightly different in meaning. When a likeness is followed out in detail, it is called a comparison, in the stricter meaning of the term. METAPHOK. 17. Metaphor is a comparison implied in the lan- guage used : as, he bridles his anger ; he was a lion in combat ; the fact is clear. This figure is in frequent use. By dispensing with the phrases of comparison — like, as, &c. — it has the advantages of being brief and of not disturbing the structure of the composi- tion. Like similitudes generally, Metaphors may (1) aid the understanding, (2) deepen the impression on the feelings, and (3) give an agreeable surprise. Examples : — (1.) To aid the understanding: — "The wish is father to the thought ; " " the light of Nature ;" " the geological record ; " " reasoning in a circle ; " " the moralist is a scout for conse- quences." " Athens, the eye of Greece, Mother of arts and eloquence." (2.) To deepen the impression on the feelings : — " I speared him with a jest ; " " the town was stormed ; " " to let loose these horrible hounds of war;" "the news was a dagger to his heart ; " " the power of directing the local disposition of the army is the royal prerogative, the master-feather in the eagle's wing. 1 '' (Chatham.) " At length Erasmus Stemmed the wild torrent of a barbarous age, And drove those holy Vandals off the stage.' 1 '' METAPHOR. 31 " Canst thou minister unto a mind diseased — Pluck from the heart a rooted sorrow ? " The following is a picturesque metaphor : — " They sank like lead in the mighty waters." (3.) Agreeable surprise : — Speaking of the king's honor, Junius varies the figure of Chatham : " The feather that adorns the royal bird, supports his flight. Strip him of his plain age, and you fix him to the earth." Again, " In the shipwreck of the state, trifles float and are preserved ; while everything solid and valuable sinks to the bottom, and is lost for ever." The condensation obtained by the metaphor, as compared with the simile, may be shown in this instance. (Simile :) " As, in passing through the crystal, beams of white light are de- composed into the colors of the rainbow ; so, in traversing the soul of the poet, the colorless rays of truth are transformed into brightly-tinted poetry." Transformed into metaphors : — "The white light of truth, in traversing the many-sided trans- parent soul of the poet, is refracted into iris-hued poetry." (Spencer's Essays — Philosophy of Style.) 18. The personifying ALetaphors are chiefly subser- vient to the purposes of poetry. The following are examples : — " gentle sleep, Nature's soft nurse.''' 1 " Full many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green." "But yonder comes the powerful king of day, Rejoicing in the east." 19. The coining of Metaphors is a means of increas- ing the names in a lano-ua^e. Metaphorical expressions pervade every language. All the simple prepositions— of, to, for, in, at, with— originally referred to place and motion ; but they have been extended by meta- phor to other relations: — "honor to the brave." The technical language of Anatomy is in great part meta- phorical :—pons varolii, hippocampus major, true skin, labyrinth 32 FIGURES OF SPEECH. of the ear. It is the same with the language of the common arts. 20. Metaphor is largely employed in expressing the more hidden operations of the mind. Thus, knowledge is light, passion is fire, depression of spirits is gloom : the thought struck him. So we speak of a ray of hope, a shade of doubt, a flight of fancy, a flash of wit, ebullitions of anger. All the names of mental operations were originally applied to something sensible ; as perception, apprehension, conception, recollection, deliberation, inspiration, imagination, sagacity (originally quick- ness of smell), acuteness, penetration, emotion, expression. Words originally applied to the operations of the senses, are transferred to those of the understanding : " I see (that is, understand) what you mean." So " taste " is made to signify discrimination in the fine arts. 21. By frequent use, metaphors may lose their fig- urative character. As in the case of melancholy (black bile), edify (build), acuteness (sharpness), ardor (heat), express (to press out), en- hance (lift), provide (see beforehand), detect (unroof), &c. In these instances, the original meaning is no longer sug- gested to the mind. In other cases, the words are still used in their primitive as well as in a figurative sense, and hence they continue to have a certain illustrative force of similarity ; as, light, color, fire, fountain, sources, root, life, thunder, star, field, clear, hard, piercing, follow, shelter, mask, ruminate. 22. Besides the faults arising in the employment of figures of similarity in general, there are some more particularly attaching to the metaphor. (1.) The Mixed Metaphor. This arises when in the same expression metaphors from different subjects are combined ; as, " to Hndle a seed," " to take arms against a sea of troubles." We may sow a seed or kindle a flame ; but the mind is MIXED METAPHORS. 33 confused when incompatible operations are required to be joined. The following example has often been quoted from Addi- son's poem on the victories of Marlborough : — " I bridle in my struggling muse with pain, That longs to launch into a bolder strain." Three different actions are here conjoined in one. " The noble harbor of the Golden Horn, five miles in length, crowded with all the flags of Europe lying in its bosom." The following line from Young, although a mixed metaphor, is considered elegant and expressive : — " Her voice is but the shadow of a sound." In like manner, many of the mixed metaphors in Shakespeare are redeemed by their effectiveness and originality. The mixture of the metaphorical and the plain, or literal, is also objectionable. Dryden, speaking of the aids he had in bis translations, says, " I was sailing in a vast ocean without other help than the pole-star of the ancients, and the rules of the French stage among the moderns." " Boyle was the father of Chemistry, and brother to the Earl of Cork." "When words have lost their metaphorical meaning, the in- congruity is no longer felt. There are, however, many words that have ceased to be metaphors, but still so far suggest their original meaning as to give the sense of harmony when the figure is attended to. Thus, to say " the impression was con- veyed" involves a certain degree of inconsistency, although quite intelligible. " Upon the style it is that these perplexities depend for their illumination." Perplexity should be disen- tangled, and obscurity illuminated. Our language has many combinations of words, indifferent as regards the metaphor, but fixed by use, and therefore not to be departed from. We say "use or employ means," and "take steps," but not use steps. One may acquire knowledge, take degrees, contract habits, lay up treasure, obtain rewards, win prizes, gain celebrity, arrive at honors, conduct affairs, espouse a side, interpose authority, pursue a course, turn to account, serve for a warning, bear no malice, profess principles, cultivate 34 FIGURES OF SPEECH. acquaintance, pass over in silence ; all which expressions owe their suitability, not to the original sense of the words, but to the established usages of the language. (2.) The straining of a Metaphor. By this is meant the pursuing of the figure into details that are irrelevant or out of keeping. Young, speaking of old age, says it should " Walk thoughtful on the silent, solemn shore Of that vast ocean it must sail so soon ; And put good works on board ; and wait the wind That shortly blows us into worlds unknown. " In the last two lines, the feelings suggested are out of keep- ing with what goes before. At first an emotion of deep so- lemnity is excited ; the figure then changes to the prosaic and calculating operations of a sea-faring enterprise. This fault is, therefore, a case of discord, which is every- where a blemish in composition. (3.) Excess of Metaphors. When metaphors are greatly multiplied, it becomes diffi- cult to preserve their congruity, and the variety of subjects necessarily distracts the mind. There is also the evil attending profusion of figures generally ; the mind is kept too much on the strain. The ancient critics particularly adverted to this fault. In the opinion of Longinus, Demosthenes observed the just mean and Plato often exceeded it. Such excess, however, is not likely to be confined to metaphors, but extends to all kinds of figures, constituting the florid or figurative style. PERSONIFICATION. 23. Personification consists in attributing life and mind to inanimate things. "The mountains sing to- gether, the hills rejoice and clap their hands." Personification is a figure of various degrees. I. The highest degree ascribes to inanimate objects human feelings and purposes, as well as sex. PERSONIFICATION. 35 As in Milton, on Eve's taking the forbidden fruit : — " So saying, her rash hand, in evil hour, Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck'd, she ate ! Earth felt the wound ; and Nature from her seat Sighing, through all her works gave signs of woe, That all was lost: 1 1 It is in this form that the figure appears in the boldest flights of poetry. In figurative boldness it is surpassed only by the Apostrophe. Shelley's "Cloud" is personification throughout. The following stanza is an example : — " I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers From the seas and the streams ; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun. I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under ; And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pass in thunder." Besides the actual objects of Nature, it is not un- usual to personify abstractions of the mind ; as, time, life, death, truth, love, virtue, evil, sin, hope, wisdom, genius, friendship, pleasure, vengeance. " Can wisdom lend, with all her boasted power, The pledge of joy's anticipated hour ? " By a process short of personification, abstractions may be represented as real things, and thereby be rendered more vivid. Thus time is a river, a shore, a wave on the ocean of eternity. Life is a vapor, a dream, a shadow. Ancient mythology gave personal existence to all the im- posing objects and appearances of Nature ; the sun, moon, and stars ; the sky, earth, seas, mountains, rocks, hills, valleys, rivers, springs, floods; the winds, clouds, thunder, hail; the day, night, dawn, light, dark ; the seasons. Likewise to the important productions of nature, as corn and wine. These personifications are retained in the poetry of all lan- guages, for the sake of clothing the objects with the interest that personality gives. 36 FIGURES OF SPEECH. 24. II. Another and inferior degree of personifica- tion consists in merely attributing some quality of living beings to things inanimate. As, the thirsty ground, a dying lamp, the angry sea, a cruel disaster, the smiling year. Thomson, describing the influence of the sunbeams upon the snow in the valley, says, " Perhaps the vale Relents awhile to the neglected ray." " Upon a rock whose haughty brow." The two forms of personification shade into each other. The second is also included among Metaphors, constituting one species of that figure. 25. The English language, by reserving the distinc- tion of gender for living beings that have sex, gives especial scope for personification. In many languages, as Greek, Latin, French, German, &c, gender is attributed to inanimate objects, in a manner that deprives it of all its meaning. In English, the masculine and feminine pronouns are regularly applied only to persons and to the more distinguished animals. Hence they are closely asso- ciated in our minds with personality ; and their occasional ap- plication to things without life has at once a personifying effect. 26. The special value of personification arises from the interest awakened in us by the actions, feelings, and deportment of beings like ourselves. Some of the strongest feelings of our nature have reference to persons; such are love, admiration, vanity, the thirst for power, revenge, derision. It is one effect of advancing civiliza- tion to enlarge the interest that we take in our fellow-creatures. The compositions that touch the deepest chords of the mind deal principally with persons, as Poetry, Romance, and His- tory. From the earliest times, this interest has been extended, by ascribing human feelings to the objects of the outer world on some pretext of remote resemblance. Thus the powers of nature, as the winds and running streams, have been assimilated THE ALLEGORY. 37 to living beings, and fancifully endowed with will, purpose, and feeling, so as to be recommended to our human sympathies. The highest merits of style are expressed by the words anima- tion, vivacity, liveliness, as if the conferring of life were the means of awakening our strongest interest. (See Strength, Poetry.) The highest form of personification should be used seldom, and only when justified by the presence of strong feeling. ALLEGORY— FABLE- PARABLE. 27. "When, with a view to some moral or instruction, subjects remote from one another are brought into a comparison sustained throughout the details, the result is an Allegory. The Pilgrim's Progress is a well-known example. In it the spiritual life or progress of the Christian is represented at length by the story of a pilgrim in search of a distant country, which he reaches after many struggles and difficulties. Comparisons of such length as Extract I. (Appexdix) are allegories. Examples occur in the Spectator — the Vision of Mirza, 159; Luxury and Avarice, 55 ; The Paradise of Fools, 460. In the Appendix, Extract III., is an allegorical contrast of Probability and Plausibility, from Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric. Chaucer's House of Fame is an allegory, imitated by Pope in his Temple of Fame. Spenser's Faery Queen is allegorical throughout ; the vir- tues and vices being personified, and made to act out their nature in a series of supposed adventures. Thomson's Castle of Indolence is one of the many imita- tions of Spenser. Swift's Tale of a Tub is an allegory, wherein the divisions of Christianity (Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinistic) are repre- sented as three brothers, whose adventures are related. So, in the Travels of Gulliver, the vices of politicians are ridiculed by being exemplified in communities made up of imaginary beings 38 FIGURES OF SPEECH. (Liliputians or dwarfs, Brobdingnagians or giants, Houyhnhnms, Yahoos). Arbuthnot's John Bull is another celebrated alle- gory of the same age. In the Allegory, for the most part, a complete story is told, so that there is a double meaning, the obvious and the implied, or allegorical. There must often be a great deal of straining to sustain the parallelism throughout a long composition. The most powerful effects realized in this style have been comic. 28. A Fable is a short allegory. According to Lessing, the Fable embodies a moral in a special case ; this is invested with reality and narrated as a story, which suggests the moral at once. Thus the narrative of " the Man and the Bundle of Sticks " embodies an import- ant truth — the power of union — in a particular case, represent- ed as real, and calculated to suggest and bring home the moral. Many fables are made to turn on the actions and charac- ters of certain animals, regarded as representatives of the qualities by which they are most distinguished. The fox figures as the embodiment of cunning, the lamb of meekness, the lion of strength. 29. Moral tales, and other compositions that com- bine the interest of a story with the conveying of in- struction or the teaching of some practical lesson, are sometimes called Fictitious Examples. The Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer were constantly ap- pealed to by the ancients in the way of enforcing important moral maxims. The moral apologue called the " Choice of Hercules " (given in the Memorabilia of Socrates) is a fictitious example. In this case there is nothing that can be called figurative, except the double intention. 30. The Parables of the Bible are, for the most part, fictitious examples. In the parable which Nathan relates to David, to make him realize the wickedness of his conduct, a supposed case is pre- SYNECDOCHE. 39 sented, setting forth David's offence as committed by another, with a change of circumstances — the object unlawfully taken being a ewe lamb instead of a wife. REMAINING FIGUEES OF SIMILAEITY. 31. The term " Synecdoche " is applied to different kinds of Figures. The following forms of synecdoche are figures of similarity : — (1.) Putting the Species for the Genus : as, bread for the necessaries of life generally ; cut-throat for murderer or assassin ; sums for arithmetic. The force of this figure depends on the superior effect — as regards both the understanding and the feelings — of the Special and the Concrete over the General and the Abstract. Food is general ; bread is particular, and more readily calls up a dis- tinct object to the mind. The principle is one that will fre- quently re-appear. (2.) The Antonomasia puts an Individual for the Species. " Every man is not a Solomon ; " " he is a Crce- sus " (in wealth) ; a Jezebel. This merely carries the same effect a step farther. Special- ity or Concreteness reaches the utmost point in the Individual. See the stanza in Gray's Elegy—" Some village Hampden," &c. (3.) Putting the Genus for the Species ; as, a vessel for a ship, a creature for a man. To substitute the more general for the less is a rare and ex- ceptional form. It can impart force only when by chance the generic name has a peculiar expressiveness. Thus, in designat- ing a dance as a measure, the effect lies in stating one of the characteristic attributes, the measured or rhythmical step. This is a common form of the figure called " Euphemism," Or the indicating of something that delicacy forbids being specifi- cally named. Thus, to avoid naming death, we have such 40 FIGURES OF SPEECH. phrases as deceased, departed, removed, falling asleep, gone to rest Campbell suggests that the translators of the Bible might have used this figure in Martha's expression respecting Lazarus, " Lord, by this time he smelleth," for " he stinketh." (4.) Putting the Concrete for the Abstract. As in Dryden : — " Nor durst begin To speak, but wisely kept the fool within." Again : — " A tyrant's power in rigor is exprest, The father yearns in- the true prince's breast." Fool is put for folly, and father, the concrete, is used for fatherly affection. The opposite case of putting the abstract for the concrete is, like the general for the particular, an exception. Youth, beauty, may sometimes stand for the young, the beautiful ; the figurative effect lies in isolating, as it were, the main quality, and thus giving it greater prominence. A minor figure of similarity is the application of numbers to things that can not be estimated with numerical precision ; as when, in describing a public man's patriotism, we say, " He gave one to his country and two to himself." u Nine-tenths of every man's happiness," says Paley, " depends on the reception he meets with in the world." The advantage gained is obvious. EXEECISE. Point out and name the figures in the following passages : — A second Daniel come to judgment. The stream of time, which is continually washing the dissolu- ble fabric of other poets, passes without injury by the adamant of Shakespeare. The soul of man is like the rolling world, One half in day, the other dipt in night. Galileo was the Columbus of the heavens. Benevolence descends into the cellars, where Poverty lies on the damp floor, while Pestilence stands at the door, like the cheru- bim at the entrance of Eden, forbidding Selfishness to enter. Teachers are the parents of the mind. EXERCISE. 4:1 Terrors are turned npon me ; they pursue my soul as the wind, and my welfare passeth away as a cloud. Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent. Thus saith the Lord God ; I will also take of the highest branch of the high cedar, and will set it ; I will crop off from the top of his young twigs a tender one, and will plant it upon an high moun- tain and eminent : in the mountain of the height of Israel will I plant it : and it shall bring forth boughs, and bear fruit, and be a goodly cedar : and under it shall dwell all fowl of every wing ; in the shadow of the branches thereof shall they dwell. And all the trees of the field shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree, have exalted the low tree, have dried up the green tree, and have made the dry tree to flourish. Destruction and Death say, we have heard thereof with our ears. Night is the summer when the soul grows ripe With Life's full harvest. There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, To bless the turf that wraps their clay ; And Freedom shall awhile repair, To dwell a weeping hermit there. Correct the following figures : — In the ferment of political revolutions, the dregs of society are sure to rise to the surface, and once there assume the reins of power with bold and unscrupulous hand. Many a youth launches forth on the journey of life with no fixed goal in view. The fire of jealousy will soon root all happiness out of the do- mestic circle. Happy is it for the community when there are some unselfish hearts ready to step forward, and pluck the thoughtless and erring, like brands, from the abyss of vice. Followers and friends, around the dying hero's couch, hold their breath, while the last spark of life is ebbing and the soul is prepar- ing to take its heavenward flight. FIGURES OF CONTIGUITY. 32. In this class of Figures, a thing is named, either by some accompaniment (Metonymy), or by some part (Synecdoche), that is peculiarly forcible or suggestive. 42 FIGURES OF SPEECH. 33. Metonymies have been classified according to the nature of the accompaniment singled out. (1.) The Sign, or Symbol, is nsed for the thing Sig- nified. As the crown or sceptre for royalty ; the mitre, the lawn, the altar, the baton, the silk-gown, the purple, the ermine, the ballot-box. Red tape is the routine of office. Peace is signi- fied by sheathing the sword, shutting the temple of Janus. These signs and circumstances are usually more striking than the main subject ; in many instances, however, all that is sought or gained is variety of expression. (2.) The Instrument for the Agent. Cowley says of Cromwell, " he set up Parliaments by the stroke of his pen, and scattered them with the breath of his mouth," the intention being to substitute for the hidden opera- tions of the mind, some outward and expressive action. In like manner, we say the arbitration of the sword ; a thousand horse, a hundred lances ; " to associate to our arms the tomahawk and the scalping-knife of the savage." (3.) The Container for the thing Contained. " They smote the city" " Ye devour widows' houses" So we say familiarly, the kettle boils. The bottle is a powerful figure for intoxicating drink. " He keeps a good table" " He drank the cup." A carpet bag, for luggage. The purse for money. From the cradle to the grave. The palace and the cottage. " I should rather be ruled by St. James's (the resi- dence of the Court) than by St. Giles's (peopled by the lowest population)." " France would not consent." A period of time is sometimes used for the productions or events included in it. In trade, we hear of a good season, a successful voyage. " Blossoms, and fruits, and flowers, together rise, And the whole year in gay confusion lies." The whole year stands for all the vegetable productions of the year. METONYMY. 43 (4.) An Effect for the Cause ; as, the shade for trees. When gray hairs is put for age, we may call it both an effect and a sign. (5.) An Author for his Works : " they have Moses and the prophets ; " "a copy of Milton" In like manner, the name of the inventor is used for his in- vention ; as when the miner speaks of his Davy, meaning his safety lamp (invented by Davy). The names of mythological personages were similarly used in old times; as, Ceres for bread, Bacchus for wine. So, Mars, Neptune, Pallas, Venus, are put for war, the ocean, wisdom, love. The interest attaching to personification, already alluded to, is what gives force to the figure in the present case also. 34. (1.) The chief form of the Synecdoche consists in naming a thing by some Part of it. As, fifty sail ; all hands at work ; they sought his blood ; the rule of three. In putting sail for ship, the part is selected on account of its prominence or suggestiveness ; the expression is thereby rendered more picturesque. So, when we speak of the red- coats, the greenbacks, the loaves. In the other instances, the part chosen is what most con- cerns the end in view ; a workman's efficiency depends on his hands ; the blood is more particularly identified with life. " How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings." Other examples : — A passenger in a -cab is called a fare. " 1 abjure all roofs." " She gave her hand but not her heart." "She had seen sixteen summers; his life had extended to seventy winters." Parts are here selected that will express the contrast between youth and age. A colt is said to be " three years old next grass," that is, — next spring. "The moment is at hand." " He was useful in his day." On the same principle, a person is named by the part of his character suited to the occasion. " Thus spoke the tempter." 44 FIGURES OF SPEECH. " The avenger of blood was on his tract." When the Deity is mentioned by one of his attributes, what is predicated of him should be consistent therewith. " The Judge of all the earth will do righf" " The Lord of Hosts is on our side." It would be an impropriety to say, " the Almighty knows our thoughts." " This subject reminds me of what I was told at Calais from a very good hand:'' It is not the hand that tells. The designation of a great man. by his locality is a figure useful only for varying the expression; as the Stagirite, the bard of Mantua, the distinguished Florentine. (2.) The reverse operation of using the Whole for a Part is a species of synecdoche : as, the smiling year, for the spring ; " cursed be the day when a man- child was born." As in the case already mentioned of putting the genus for the species, this must be a rare figure, since it runs contrary to the general principle regulating vividness of impression. It may sometimes happen that there is something in the aspect of a whole that arrests the attention more forcibly than the part would do. The phrase " the Roman world " is intended to impress the mind with the vastness of the Roman empire. (3.) The name of the Material is given for the thing Made : as, the glittering steel (for the sword) ; the mar- hie speaks ; the canvas glows ; wine ten years in the wood. The name of the material is strongly suggestive of the visi- ble aspect of the thing, and especially the color, which it is more difficult to realize vividly than the form or outline. Hence this is one of the picturesque figures. (4.) The name of a passion is sometimes given for the object that inspires it; as, my love, my joy, my de- light, my admiration, my aversion, my horror, for the causes of those feelings. By this figure the Deity is styled " the terror of the op- pressor, and the refuge of the oppressed." Again, " The Lord SYNECDOCHE. 45 is my song, He is become my salvation." Dryden introduces the Duke of Monmouth as " The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme, The young men's vision, and the old men's dream." Song, salvation, prayer, vision, dream, are used instead of their several objects. "The sigh of her sacred soul," in Ossian, designates him that is sighed for. The name of a person is occasionally put for his fame or renown. " Kant, the greatest name in the philosophy of Ger- many." " The dreaded name of Demogorgon." The effectiveness of the present variety of the Synecdoche is explained on the general principle of selecting the prominent or the pertinent portion of the thing designated. The Euphemism is sometimes a figure of contiguity ; as, stopping payment, for becoming bankrupt. 35. The Transferred Epithet is a common figure in poetry. The shifting of an epithet from its proper subject to some allied subject or circumstance is illustrated in these examples: " Hence to his idle bed." " He plods his weary way." " The ignorant fumes that mantle their dearer reason." " With easy eye thou mayest behold." " The little fields made green By husbandry of many thrifty years." Kindred ideas are thus brought closer together ; as, idle and bed. Thrifty years is vigorous by condensation. We have cases in ordinary prose where this figure is used, for the sake of conciseness* as, a criminal court, the condemned cell. FIGURES OF CONTRAST. 36. It is a first principle of the human mind that we are affected only by change of impression, as by passing from hot to cold, from hunger to repletion, from sound to silence. This applies to both Feeling and Knowledge. 46 FIGURES OF SPEECH. Every outburst of feeling implies that we have passed from one condition to another. In some emotions, as wonder, the prominent fact is a transition from a previous state ; the shock of change is the cause of the feeling. In like manner, a sense of freedom presupposes restraint, and the sentiment of power some previous state of impotence or weakness. Knowledge, likewise, implies transition. We know light by having passed out of the dark, height by comparison with depth, hardness with softness. In short, knowledge is never single ; it must have at least two objects, sometimes more than two. Our knowledge of man, for instance, takes in all that we ever contrast with man — God, angel, animal, &c. The essential plurality of Knowledge is not fully represented in ordinary language ; we are supposed to be capable of recall- ing the full contrast involved in each case — heat as against cold, man as opposed to brute, &c. Still, it not unfrequently hap- pens that our understanding of a thing is aided by the express mention of contrasting objects ; this mention is therefore a de- vice of Rhetoric, and is called Antithesis or Contrast.* So it is in the production of Feeling. A speaker may con- vey a more forcible impression of Liberty by conjoining, with the language usually applied to it, an explicit description of the opposite conditiou of Restraint, The reference to the opposite contrasting state is almost unavoidable in description ; but by the figure of Antithesis this reference amounts to a fully drawn parallel picture. 37. Antithesis, properly so called, consists in the ex- plicit statement of the contrast implied in the meaning of any term or description. This is exemplified in Motion and Rest, Hot and Cold, Lib- erty and Restraint, Pain and Pleasure, Industry and Idleness. These are the contrasts that give the contrasted words their principal meaning. The following are examples : — * It is like judging qualities by placing them beside their contrasts, in- stead of trusting for these to memory. Thus a white surface appears brighter in proximity to black ; a weight is compared with a present, in- stead of a remembered, standard. ANTITHESIS. 47 "To be a blessing, and not a curse."''' " Two men I honor, and no third." " In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As mild behavior and humanity ; But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Let us be tigers in our fierce deportment." Here the characteristic attitude of war is sufficiently given in the last two lines ; but for additional vividness the poet pre- pares the way by an explicit reference to peace. So in Tennyson's Brook : — " Men may come and men may go, But I go on for every The idea of perpetuity is more fully impressed by putting beside it an example of its natural opposite, the transitory. An apposite example occurs in Froude's Henry VIII. : " The petition claims especial notice, not only because it was the first active movement towards a separation from Rome, but because it originated, not with the King, not ivith the parliament, not with the people, but with a section of the clergy themselves." 38. There are several forms of Antithesis, in which the contrast is only of a secondary kind. (1.) The contrast of the members of a comprehen- sive class. For example, Heat and Light (class of sensations, or of natural agents) ; Liberty and Plenty (class of worldly bless- ings) ; Industry and Frugality (means to wealth) ; Sublimity and Beauty (artistic effects); Painting and Poetry (fine arts). The process of classification, whereby things are brought together on some point of resemblance, is accompanied with the marking of differences. AYe come to know heat, not merely by its fundamental opposite cold, but by its difference from light, another member of the class of natural agents. Heat thus acquires a new meaning, consisting in the peculiarities wherein it differs from light ; and, to indicate that meaning ex- plicitly, we should mention light. So Liberty, besides being opposed to Restraint, is opposed to Plenty, to Health, to Honor, in the class of worldly advantages ; every one of those con- 48 FIGURES OF SPEECH. trasts is something added to its meaning ; and, to make that meaning certain, the contrast may be stated. This form of Antithesis is frequent in literature. It is common to contrast points of character that are different phases of excellence or defect, as Sense and Sensibility, Genius and Judgment, the Irascible and the Pusillanimous ; these are not fundamentally opposed, like Sense and Folly, which are merely the two sides of the same property. The balanced descriptions of Homer and Virgil by Dryden, and of Dryden and Pope by Johnson, are but secondary contrasts. The antithesis of the sycophant and the honest politician, in Demosthenes on the Crown, is more of a real contrast, and is highly effective both as exposi- tion and as oratory. The qualities contrasted under the foregoing head may also possess a certain agreeable effect when brought together. Thus the contrast of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza is the means of producing situations, sometimes harmoniously pleasing, at other times ludicrously incongruous. The harmony of different qualities is brought about when they mutually supply each other's deficiencies. Thus, a man of inventive genius and a man of practical judgment may com- bine with advantage to both ; and such harmonious combina- tions form an agreeable picture. As no one pleasure can endure long, it is usual to provide for variety of excitement. Thus, a poem alternates from sub- limity to tenderness, from description to interest of narrative, from the ornate to the plain. In so doing, the moods must not be incompatible or mutually destructive, as would be a com- bination of the solemn and the ludicrous ; in other words, a certain keeping must be preserved. (2.) Another form of Antithesis is seen when things contradictory are brought pointedly together to increase the oratorical effect. As in Chatham: "Who is the man that has dared to call into civilized alliance the wild and inhuman inhabitant of the WO ods? — to delegate to the merciless Indian the defence of 0BAT0KICAL ANTITHESIS. 49 disputed rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren ? " So in the speech of Brutus over the body of Lueretia : — " Xow look re where she lies, That beauteous flower, that innocent sweet rose, Torn up by ruthless violence.' 1 '' " Is dust and ashes proud ? " Want of intellect " makes a village an Eden, a college a sty." The most common example of this kind of contrast is Life and Death. (3.) Contradictory or conflicting statements are some- times made for the purpose of exciting wonder. See the commencement of Extract IV. "What can be more extraordinary than that a person of mean birth," &c. The contrast of great results flowing from small agencies excites wonder in its highest form — the sentiment of power, or the sublime. 39. The chief thing to be considered in the employ- ment of the trne Antithesis is the need there is for it. Assuming that the contrast is genuine, and not fanciful, it is still possible to multiply antitheses unnecessarily. In most cases, a single statement sufficiently suggests the implied oppo- site. When from obscurity or feebleness this is not the case, the explicit mention of the contrast is a valuable aid. The term Antithesis is also applied to modes of construc- tion afterwards described under the Balanced Sentence. EXEECISE. Point out and name the figures in the following 'passages : — Favors to none, to all she smiles extends. Wisdom is grey hair to men. Let us pass from the Stagirite to the philosopher of Malmes- bury. We bury love ; Forgetfulness grows over it, like grass. All Switzerland is in the field. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. 3 50 FIGURES OF SPEECH. Before his honesty of purpose, calumny was dumb. Worn out with anguish, toil, and cold, and hunger, Down sunk the wanderer ; sleep had seized her senses. There did the traveller find her in the morning : God had released her. Panoplied in brass, they came from the ships and tents. There be some who, with everything to make them happy, plod their discontented and melancholy way through life, less grateful than the dog which licks the hand that feeds it. A hundred head of cattle sometimes passed in a drove. In Demosthenes we find a fiery energy, but not that polish and elegance that characterize Cicero. His roof was at the service of the outcast ; the unfortunate ever found a welcome at his threshold. Still in harmonious intercourse they lived The rural day, and talked the flowing heart. Talent convinces ; Genius but excites : That tasks the reason ; this the soul delights. Talent from sober judgment takes its birth, And reconciles the pinion to the earth ; Genius unsettles with desires the mind, Contented not till earth be left behind. Talent, the sunshine on a cultivated soil, Ripens the fruit by slow degrees for toil ; Genius, the sudden Iris of the skies, On cloud itself reflects its wondrous dyes, And to the earth in tears and glory given, Clasps in its airy arch the pomp of heaven ! It is the decree of Providence that man shall earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. Petitions having proved unsuccessful, it was next determined to approach the throne more boldly. Gold cannot make a man happy any more than rags can render him miserable. OTHER IMPORTANT FIGURES. In addition to the three classes of Figures that have been enumerated, corresponding to the three great powers of the Intellect, we may single out, as involving principles of import- ance, the Epigram, Hyperbole, Climax, Interrogation, Exclama- tion, Apostrophe, Innuendo, and Irony. THE EPIGRAM. 51 THE EPIGRAM. 40. Iii the Epigram * the mind is roused by a con- flict or contradiction between the form of the language and the meaning really conveyed. " The child is father to the man " is an epigram. The language contradicts itself, but the meaning is apparent. " Beauty, when unadorned, 's adorned the most," is an epigrammatic form of saying that natural beauty is better without artificial decoration. This is a figure of frequent occurrence. It is naturally confounded with Antithesis, from the presence of an element of contrariety. The intention, however, is not to elucidate a truth otherwise than by awakening the attention through the form given to it. Any contradiction gives a shock of sur- prise, which is a state favorable to receiving an impression. The following are examples of the epigram in its most usual form, as now defined : — " When you have nothing to say, say it." " Conspicuous for its absence." Grote says of the legendary age, that to it was a past that never was present." The seeming contradiction conveys a real and important meaning. " We cannot see the wood for trees," is an impressive illus- tration of the difficulty of attaining a general view, when en- grossed with the details. " Verbosity is cured by a wide vocabulary." This inti- mates a truth under the guise of a self-contradiction. By the *" Epigram" signified originally an inscription on a monument. It came next to mean a short poem, containing some single thought pointedly expressed, the subjects being very various — amatory, convivial, moral, eulogistic, satirical, humorous, &c. Of the various devices for brevity and point employed in such compositions, especially in modern times, the most frequent is a play upon words. Under whatever name described, this is a well-marked and distinct effect ; and, as all the other modes of giving point have separate designations (metaphor, balance, &c), I have regarded it as the principal form of epigram, and named it accordingly. 52 FIGURES OF SPEECH. command of a wide vocabulary, we can make so nappy a selec- tion as to give our meaning in few words. Hesiod, illustrating the desirableness of simplicity of life, exclaims, " How much is the half greater than the whole ! " "By indignities men come to dignities," is a characteristic saying of Bacon. " The favorite has no friend." " Some people are too foolish to commit follies." " A soul of goodness in things evil." " The better is the enemy of good," is a German proverb, intended to reprove aspirations after impracticable improve- ments. It is analogous to the homely saying, "More haste, worse speed." " By merit raised to that bad eminence." " One secret in education is to know how wisely to lose time." (Herbert Spencer.) " Nothing so fallacious as facts, except figures." (Canning.) "Every man desires to live long; but no man would be old." " Language is the art of concealing thought." " 'Tis all thy business, business how to shun," " He surpassed himself." " Out-heroding Herod." " He is so good that he is good for nothing," is a play upon the word good ; in the one clause it means mere amiability of disposition, in the other the power of being useful. Pope is especially fertile in epigrams : — " And most contemptible to shun contempt." " And now the chapel's silver bell you hear, That summons you to all the pride of prayer." " Nature, like liberty, is best restrained, By the same laws which first herself ordained." 41. The effect of the Epigram in giving a shock of surprise may be produced by the Identical Assertion : as, " Fact is fact ; " " What I have written, I have written ; " " Bread is bread." To say that a thing is what it is, conveys no additional in- THE EPIGEAM. 53 formation, and we are surprised that any one should make so unmeaning an assertion. We then cast about, and find that there are two senses in the words, and that the subject takes one, and the predicate another. " What I have written," means simply the inscription as set up by Pilate ; the second clause "I have written" is intended to insinuate the further meaning, not necessarily conveyed, that the inscription is written finally, and is not to be amended or reconsidered. When Johnson said " Sensation is sensation," it was his way of expressing that his uneasy feeling on the occasion was too great to be done away with by reasoning, or mastered by mere reso- lution. Bentham made an emphatic statement of the principle of the equal rights of men, in the apparently identical proposi- tion, " Everybody to count for one, and nobody to count for more than one." " His coming was an event ; " that is, something unusual. 42. Seeming Irrelevance, also, has the effect of an epigrammatic surprise. When Emerson says, " Where snow falls, there is a free- dom," he puts together two things that have no obvious con- nection ; the proposition appears not so much contradictory as irrelevant and nonsensical. When we reflect a little, we see that he means to describe the influences of tropical heat in de- bilitating the energies of men, and so preparing them for politi- cal slavery. 43. When a familiar saving is unexpectedly turned into a new form which completely changes the meaning, we may class it as an epigram. As in the saying of Horace Walpole : " Summer has set in with its usual severity." We might invert Spenser's designa- tion of the old English, and say, " the well of English unpuri- fied." " Do unto others, as ye would not that they should do unto you." In such a case as this last, it is known that the speaker 54 FIGURES OF SPEECH. does not mean to contradict the highest maxim of morality, aad therefore it is necessary to look out for his real drift, which is probably ironical. The following example is from Kinglake's History of the Crimean War : " In the eyes of the Czar, Lord Stratford's way of keeping himself eternally in the right and eternally moder- ate was the mere contrivance, the inverted Jesuitism, of a man resolved to do good that evil might come — resolved to be for- bearing and just, for the sake of doing a harm to the church." "He went to his imagination for his facts, and to his memory for his tropes," is renowned as a cutting insinuation, or sarcasm. It is an epigrammatic inversion of the province of each of the two faculties named. 44. The use of the arrestive conjunctions gives- something of the force of the epigram. " We hate the sin, but pity the sinner." " The world will tolerate many vices, but not their diminutives." "Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull." The epigram is evidently dependent upon a plurality of significations in the same word. Many words have, besides the obvious or familiar sense, some other acceptation that rec- onciles the seeming contradiction, and gives a real and valua- ble meaning. When Milton describes the leader of the Satanic host, as " by merit raised to that bad eminence," the double epigram turns upon the words merit and eminence; these, in their first and obvious meaning, express qualities that we ad- mire and approve, but they are also employed to denote un- usual superiority of body or mind, although exhibited in ways that we disapprove. 45. The Paronomasia, or Pun, is well known in or- dinary conversation, and in comic writing, but rarely enters into serious composition. It is a variety of the Epigram ; being a play on the various meanings of the same word. It is occasionally brought in with effect. Ferrier, in his Philosophy, terms our Faculty of Sense a HYPERBOLE; 55 Faculty of Nonsense, availing himself of the double meaning of the word to suggest a doctrine. The Conundrum pushes to the utmost limits the playing at cross purposes with the meaning of words. HYPERBOLE. 46. Hyperbole consists in magnifying objects beyond their natural bounds, so as to make them more impres- sive or intelligible. " Swift as the wind ; " " rivers of blood and hills of slain," are hyperbolical expressions. So far as the feelings are concerned, the tendency to hyper- bole or exaggeration may be referred mainly to two causes. 1. Every strong passion magnifies whatever concerns it. Love, fear, hatred, exaggerate their several objects in propor- tion to their intensity. The Psalmist expresses his devotion by the sentence, " A day in Thy courts is better than a thousand." Affection has always been permitted to enhance its objects far above their reality. Fear exaggerates danger. Hatred in- tensifies, and even creates, bad qualities in the person or thing hated. This has to be attended to in depicting character. Any one under strong passion is represented as magnifying the object of the passion. The terrified scout, in Ossian, is made to describe the enemy thus : " 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." Satan's despair is portrayed in the famous passage, " Me miserable," &c. Flattery and Adulation are names for the figure in one particular application. 2. Human desire is naturally illimitable. Hence, whatever pleases us in poetry, or in the fine arts generally, is magnified as far as can be done without offending our sense of reality and truth. Wordsworth, in his praise of Duty, exclaims, " And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong." 56 FIGURES OF SPEECH. It is a function of poetry to please us by objects of sur- passing grandeur or loveliness, taken from nature and from humanity. Accordingly, it raises actual things by the force of elevated description, and by all the arts of admissible exagger- ation. On account of this feature of the poetic art, Plato banished poets from his Republic, and Bentham styled poetry " misrepresentation in verse." As a familiar instance, we may quote from Milton, " So frowned the mighty combatants, that hell Grew darker at their frown. 11 The hyperboles of Shakespeare are in keeping with the force and profusion of his genius. They minister to the in- tensity of passion in his characters. See, as an example, the soliloquy of Macbeth before the murder, Act L, Scene 7. Exaggeration is largely resorted to for comic effect. As the ludicrous requires that a certain object should be deprecia- ted in some mode or other, this is not unfrequently effected by gross exaggeration. Voltaire, speaking of our language, said " The English gain two hours a day by clipping words." 47. Hyperbole must be kept within the limits im- posed upon the bolder figures. All such figures (1) should have regard to what the hearer is disposed to admit in the way of departure from the known reality, (2) should be sparingly used, and (3) should not be trite. (1.) The feelings of those addressed must be sufficiently strong to come up to the hyperbolical expression. Few were prepared, in this respect, for Dryden's couplet on Charles II. : — " The star that at your birth shone out so bright, It stained the duller sun's meridian light." The hyperboles of love are admissible only with the lover. (2.) A continued strain of Hyperboles, as in the Ossianic poems, is condemned as too exhausting. (3.) Originality is indispensable to hyperbole. A mere exaggeration is easy ; the kind that yields pleasurable surprise must have novelty, grandeur, or point, to recommend it. Plato CLIMAX. 57 compared the Idea of Good to the Sun. Horace speaks of a man " striking the stars with his sublime head." Burke's famous passage on Marie Antoinette is a hyper- bole, rendered impressive by chivalrous devotion and by origi- nality in the language. The following example is from Shelley : — u There was such silence through the host, as when An earthquake, trampling on some populous town, Has crushed ten thousand with one tread, and men Expect the second." 48. What is called putting an Extreme Case, is an important device of exaggeration for the purpose of illustrating truth. We reproach a man for neglecting some common duty, by putting it to him what would be the consequences if every one were to be equally remiss. To show the influence of the mind on the body, it is usual to quote the extreme instances of persons dying of a broken heart, or killed by a shock of grief or of joy. Xenophanes illustrates the origin of the pagan gods, by the remark that, if oxen or lions were to become religious, they would in like manner provide for themselves gods of their own shape and character. CLIMAX. 49. Climax is the arranging of the particulars of a period, or other portion of discourse, so as to rise in strength to the last. The common example of this figure is from the Oration of Cicero against Verres. The orator, wishing to raise the indig- nation of the audience to the highest pitch, refrained from specifying the crime of the accused at once, and led the way up to it by successive steps : " It is an outrage to bind a Roman citizen; to scourge him is an atrocious crime; to put him to death is almost a parricide ; but to crucify him — what shall I call it?" 3* 58 FIGURES OF SPEECH. Climax owes its effect to the peculiar constitution of the mind. A slight stimulus is at first sufficient to afford gratifica- tion ; as this palls, we must have something stronger ; and so by successive steps the highest degree of strength is called for, and the greatest effect secured. The principle of rising in this way by successive degrees applies to the sentence or period, to the paragraph, and to the entire composition. A play, or a romance, increases in excite- ment by degrees to the final catastrophe; and so ought an oration. We do not here particularly inquire what constitutes de- grees of strength or impressiveness. Whatever be the reasons why one expression, circumstance, or situation, stirs up a more lively feeling than another, the less lively should precede the stronger. It has been seen that the special or concrete is more impressive than the general or abstract. On this ground, Campbell considers that the following passage in the Song of Solomon constitutes a climax : " For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land ; the fig-tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines, with the tender grape, give a good smell." The description commences with the generalities, " winter," the season of " rain ; " proceeds to specialize the " flowers," the "birds; " and comes at last to individuals, "the turtle," "the fig-tree," and " the vine." The Climax is exemplified in the Appendix, Extracts I., IV., &c. Burke's peroration in the impeachment of Warren Hast- ings, seems intended for a climax, but the gradation is scarcely apparent. "I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament assembled, whose parliamentary trust he has abused (1). I impeach him in the name of our holy religion, which he has disgraced (2). I im- peach him in the name of the English constitution, which he has violated and broken (3). I impeach him in the name of the Indian millions, whom he has sacrificed to injustice (4). INTEEB0GATI0N. 59 I impeach him by the name and by the best rights of human nature, which he has stabbed to the heart (5)." The third sentence should have been second; between the third and fourth there would then have been a natural connection. The fourth derives its strength from speciality, while the fifth can merit the highest place only by the width of its comprehension, which redeems the abstractness of the subject, " the rights of human nature." Any great departure from the order of ascending strength is called an Anti-climax. INTERROGATION. 50. The Interrogation aims at conveying an opinion more strongly by giving it the form of a question. " Hath he said it, and shall he not do it ? " affirms strongly that what is said will be done. We may be listless while one is merely making declarations, but on being appealed to by a question we are obliged to attend. The commencement of Cicero's First Oration against Cati-« line is considered a striking and well-timed employment of this figure. Demosthenes exemplifies it in his passages of denun- ciation in the Philippics, and in the Speech on the Crown. " Will you continue to go about to each other and ask, What's the news ? Can anything be more new than that a man from Macedonia should subjugate Greece ? Is Philip dead ? Xo in- deed ; but he is ill. What matters it to you ? To you, who, if he were to come to grief, would quickly get yourselves another Philip?" Chatham, in his grandest outburst, demands, " Who is the man that . . . has dared to authorize and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the savage ? " Pope concludes his passage in Addison : — "Who would not laugh, if such a man there be? Who would not weep, if Atticus were he ? " It will be seen from these examples that the negative inter- rogation affirms, and the positive denies. 60 FIGURES OF SPEECH. A certain pitch of excitement is requisite to justify the boldness of this figure. EXCLAMATION. 51. "When from sudden and intense emotion, we give utterance to some abrupt, inverted, or elliptical expres- sion, we are said to use an Exclamation ; as " bravo," " dreadful," " the fellow," " what a pity ! " To comply -with the full forms of ordinary speech demands a certain coolness and deliberation, the opposite of a state of sudden excitement. The Interjection is a species of exclamation. Most inter- jections have no meaning except as indicating sudden emo- tion ; oh, bah, hurrah. The cheers, hisses, and groans called forth by a public speaker are of this nature. The Exclamation proper usually consists of words with meaning. Sometimes a part of the complete sentence is dropped : "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse ! " " Oh, the riches both of the goodness and the mercy of God ! " At other times, it is the strong expression of a wish, as in Cow- per's lines : — " Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness," &c. APOSTROPHE. 52. Apostrophe consists in addressing something absent, as if present ; as when an orator invokes some hero of other times, or a preacher appeals to angels and departed saints. It supposes great intensity of emotion. This figure is often combined with personification. "O death, where is thy sting ! " " thou sword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet ! " So in Campbell's apostrophe : — "Eternal Hope, when yonder spheres began," &c. INNITENDO. 61 This figure is frequently employed for comic effect ; as in Burns's "Tarn o' Shanter":— " Ah, Tarn ! Ah, Tam ! thou'll get thy fair-in' ! " It is a liberty taken with exalted objects and persons to address them with familiarity, and the result is degrading and thence ludicrous. The writings of Carlyle abound with this figure thus employed. 53. The figure called Vision is allied to Apostrophe, and consists in bringing the absent before the mind with the force of present reality. Something approaching this occurs in Chatham: "From the tapestry that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestor of this noble lord frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country." Byron's Gladiator is supposed to be seen in the body, on the mere suggestion of the statue. A striking apostrophe, raised to Vision, occurs in the pero- ration of Robert Hall's Sermon on the Threatened Invasion of 1803. INNUENDO, OR INSINUATION. 54. When a thing, instead of being plainly stated, is suggested or implied merely, the effect is sometimes much greater. This is Innuendo. When it was said of a member of Parliament that "he did his party all the harm in his power, he spoke for it and voted against it " — his unskilful oratory is denounced with a peculiar force. The omission of the direct statement makes the fact seem so notorious, that it can be assumed and proceeded on without that formality. A compliment is rendered more forcible by being merely insinuated. The recipient of direct praise dreads the jealousy of others, and is laid under the necessity of professing grati- tude and humility ; all which is saved by the indirect compli- ment. 62 FIGURES OF SPEECH. When the Innuendo is employed in vituperation, it has an advantage belonging in a still greater measure to the next figure ; it baffles reply. The thing is said, and yet said so that the person reflected upon cannot lay hold of it in the way of refutation or retort. A good example is furnished in Pope's lines on the Lord Mayor's pageant : — " Now night descending, the gay scene is o'er ; But lives in Settle's numbers one day more.'''' Fuller's saying on Camden, the antiquarian, is a witty in- nuendo : " He had a number of coins of the Roman Emperors, and a good many more of the later English Kings. 11 In the progress of refinement, innuendo takes the place of open vituperation. The device of suggesting, instead of openly expressing, is made to ramify widely in literature and the fine arts. The full illustration of it does not belong to this place. The moral tale evades our usual repugnance to a moral lecture, by conveying its lesson under the guise of an amusing story. But the painter and the poet have other intentions besides this. They introduce particulars that imply a great deal more than they express, and thus give a starting-point to the thoughts. This is always a source of pleasure to the mind, which likes to have a certain scope for desire and imagination. Suggestion may be employed with advantage when a full or direct statement would involve what is harsh or offensive, as in depicting violent anguish or horror, and even in such extreme manifestations of pleasure as the observer cannot sympathize with. IRONY. 55. Irony expresses the contrary of what is meant, there being something in the tone or manner to show the real drift of the speaker ; as in Job's address to his friends, " No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom will die with yon." ERONY. 63 The ironical address gives an opponent no handle, and is thus an embarrassing instrument of vituperation. Carlyle, speaking of the much abused Cromwellian Puri- tans, says, " yet they were not altogether imbeciles, these men." The cloak of Irony was put on by Swift in his masterpieces of allegory — Gulliver, the Tale of a Tub, and the Battle of the Books. There is a delicate stroke of irony in Sir G. C. Lewis's re- mark on the pretended antiquity of the Babylonian Astronomy. " The story of the astronomical observations, extending over 31,000 years, sent from Babylon to Aristotle, zoould be a con- clusive proof of the antiquity of the Chaldcean Astronomy, if it were true.'''' The irony consists in seeming to accept the enor- mous allegation, with merely the slight reservation, if it were true. Sarcasm is vituperation softened in the outward expression by the arts and figures of disguise— epigram, innuendo, irony — and embellished with the figures of illustration. The Letters of Junius come under this description. Pope's Atticus is a mixture of direct vituperation, epigram, innuendo, and irony. There is irony amounting to sarcasm in Locke's remark upon the Aristotelian Logic: "God did not make man, and leave it to Aristotle to make him rational." 56. Of the figures of the old rhetoricians only a small number have been selected in the foregoing expo- sition. Many are mere varieties of those now given ; some will appear in other connections ; while a consid- erable number are so minute or trivial that they are scarce worth attending to. Ellipsis, or the omission of a word or words essential to the construction but not to the sense, is a figure of both gram- mar and rhetoric. It conduces to brevity, and is sometimes a sign of strong feeling. It is also a suggestive figure ; what is unexpressed being left to the imagination to fill up. The single word " Impossible " is more expressive than a complete sentence affirming impossibility. 64 FIGURES OF SPEECH. Asyndeton, or the omission of connectives, is a figure con- ducing to energy. " The wind passeth over it — it is gone." " Thou sentest forth thy -wrath — it consumed them as stubble." See also the song of Moses, and Psalm civ. 28-30. Great stress was laid on this figure by the Greek rhetoricians. The Hyperbaton (much used, it is said, by Demosthenes) is purposed inversion and perplexity, before announcing some- thing of great emphasis and import, thus giving to a meditated expression the effect of an impromptu. EXERCISE. Point out and name the figures in the following passages : — No light, but rather darkness visible. A frame of adamant, a soul of fire, No dangers fright him, and no labors tire. Art thou the first man that was born ? or wast thou made be- fore the hills? Hast thou heard the secret of God ? and dost thou restrain wisdom to thyself? He lived to die, and died to live. Harmonious discord everywhere. But there are even some, O Komans, who say that Catiline has been cast into exile by me. That timid and very modest man, no doubt, was unable to endure the voice of the consul ; as soon as he was ordered to go into exile, he obeyed, he went. Ossian's Address to the Moon : — Daughter of heaven, fair art thou ! The silence of thy face is pleasant. Thou comest forth in loveliness. The stars attend thy blue course in the east. The clouds rejoice in thy presence, Moon ! They brighten their dark-brown sides. "Who is like thee in heaven, light of the silent night ? The stars are ashamed in thy presence. They turn away their spark- ling eyes. 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 ? Are they who rejoiced with thee at night no more? Yes, they have fallen, fair light! and thou dost often retire to mourn. But thou thyself shalt fail one night, and leave thy blue path in heaven. The stars will then lift their heads; they who were ashamed in thy presence will rejoice. Thou art now clothed with thy brightness. Look from thy gates in the sky. Burst the EXEECISE. 65 cloud, O wind ! that the daughters of night may look forth ; that the shaggy mountains may brighten, and the ocean roll its -white waves in light. The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve ; And, like an insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. If I had as many tongues as there are stars in heaven, as many words as there are grains of sand on the shore, my tongues would be tired, and my words exhausted, before I could do justice to your immense merit. "War and Love are strange compeers. War sheds blood, and Love sheds tears ; War has swords, and Love has darts ; War breaks heads, and Love breaks hearts. And beside 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. Hasten slowly. Oh for a lodge in some vast -wilderness ! Some boundless contiguity of shade ! How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morn- ing! As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up : so man lieth down, and riseth not : till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me ! A Scotch mist becomes a shower ; and a shower, a flood ; and a flood, a storm ; and a storm, a tempest ; and a tempest, thunder and lightning ; and thunder and lightning, heaven-quake and earth- quake. For contemplation he and valor formed ; For softness she and sweet attractive grace ; He for God only, she for God in him. Me miserable ! which way shall I fly Infinite wrath, and infinite despair ? Which way I fly is hell ; myself am hell ; And in the lowest deep a lower deep, Still threatening to devour me, opens wide, To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven. 66 NUMBER OF WORDS. CHAPTER II. THE NUMBER OF WORDS. 57. The Figures of Speech all conduce to the great- er effectiveness of style ; they either present a thought more vividly to the intellect, or operate more power- fully upon the feelings. It is now requisite to consider two other devices having the same objects in view as figures. The one regards the Number of Words employed, and the other their Arrangement. 58. On the principle of attaining ends at the small- est cost, Brevity is a virtue of language. Every word uttered taxes the attention and occupies a space in the thoughts; hence when words are used only as instru- ments, they should be compressed into the least compass con- sistent with the adequate expression of the meaning. The epithets " terse," " concise," " laconic," imply strength as the result of brevity. The veni, vidi, vici of Csesar is unsurpassed and immortal. Of the ancients, Thucydides, Horace, and Tacitus were celebrated for brevity. Dante is likewise a great example. Though the genius of the English language is not so favorable to condensed forms of expression as that of the classical tongues, yet some of our writers are models of an elegant brevity; it is sufficient to mention Shakespeare and Pope. 59. The chief sources of Brevity are (1) the selec- tion of the aptest words ; (2) a condensed grammatical structure ; and (3) the employment of figures, more espe- cially Comparison and Metaphor, Transferred Epithet, Antithesis, Epigram, and the admissible forms of El- lipsis. (1.) For the selection of words no precise rules can be SOURCES OF BREVITY. 67 given. The effect, on trial, will show what answers the pur- pose of conveying much meaning in a small compass. (2.) There are certain constructions favorable to brevity. These are — the use of the participle for the clause with a finite verb; apposition, instead of connectives; the employment of the abstract noun (See Simplicity) ; the use of adjectives for adjective clauses,* of nouns for adjectives (" knowledge qualifi- cation," " stump orator "), of the phrase made up of preposition and noun, with or without an adjective (" action for trespass,' 1 " the right of the strongest ") ; the contracted and the con- densed sentence. (3.) As regards the employment of figures, it is apparent, from the illustrations already given, that the species named contribute to Brevity. The following are a few additional examples: — Pitt's defence of the rotten burgh system was, " Their amputation would be death " (to the country). Cur- ran's saying on Irish liberty is equally terse : " I sat at her cradle, I followed her hearse." The proverb, or aphorism, is a condensed expression of a truth, generally embodying an epigram, or a balanced struc- ture. " Least said, soonest mended." 60. Brevity has to be sought without sacrificing perspicuity and the proprieties of language. There are occasions when the desired effects of style are gained by clifiuseness. For example, an explanation must be suited in length to the state of mind of the persons addressed ; while things well known are recalled by brief allusion. In working up the feel- ings, a certain length of time is requisite, which the orator and poet know how to adjust. Again, in suiting the sound to the sense, a polysyllabic word, or a lengthened clause, may be re- quired. Thus the long word stupendous better corresponds with a state of intense astonishment than the monosyllable * " The clouds . . . .let all their moisture flow, In large effusion, o'er the freshened world." Byron describes the Rhine castles as "all tenantless, save to the cran- nying wind." 68 NUMBER OF WORDS. vast; magnificent is more powerful than grand. The high- sounding word ambassador suits a dignified functionary ; while we often express contempt by a curt appellation, as a flirt, a fop, a sot, a thief, bosh. It is a general rule that an excess of the connecting parts of speech — as pronouns and conjunctions — enfeebles the style. Yet emphasis sometimes requires their multiplication ; as in the words of St. Paul, " For I am persuaded that neither life, nor death, nor," &c. So in Milton : — " Seasons return, but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom or summer's rose, Or flocks or herds, or human face divine." Other exceptions wttl appear in what follows. 61. The violations of Brevity are of three kinds, denominated Tautology, Redundancy, and Circumlocu- tion. I. Tautology means the repetition of the same sense in different words ; as when Swift says, " In the Attic commonwealth, it was the privilege and birth- right of every citizen and poet, to rail aloud and in public? The meaning is the same as, " it was the privilege of every citizen to rail in public." The following sentence from Tillotson contains numerous tautologies : " Particularly as to the affairs of this world, in- tegrity hath many advantages over all the fine and artificial ways of dissimulation and deceit ; it is much the plainer and easier, much the safer and more secure way of dealing with the world ; it has less of trouble and difficulty, of entanglement and perplexity, of danger and hazard in it. The arts of deceit and cunning do continually grow weaker, and less effectual and serviceable to them that use them." So in Addison : — " The dawn is overcast ; the morning lowers, And heavily in clouds brings on the day." These three clauses all express the same fact. TAUTOLOGY. 69 Through constantly aiming at a balanced structure of sen- tence, Johnson sometimes approaches this fault. Speaking of the style of Pryor, he says : " He had often infused into it much knowledge and much thought ; had often polished it into elegance, often dignified it into splendor, and sometimes height- ened it to sublimity ; and did not discover that it wanted the power of engaging attention and alluring curiosity." The coupling of synonymous words and phrases is admissible under the following circumstances : — (1.) When one word does not express the full sense intended. No two words are exactly synonymous for all purposes ; one has a shade that the other wants ; and it may take both to give the whole' meaning. Hence we are accustomed to such phrases as " ways and means," u passing and transitory," ' ; subject-mat- ter." -In legal documents synonymous words are joined for the sake of exhaustive completeness. When Wordsworth couples "the vision and the faculty divine," he intends that the two phrases, which are nearly alike, should unfold between them a greater amount of meaning than either conveys. (2.) For the sake of putting greater stress on the prominent points of the exposition. Good exposition requires that the main subject should be distinguished from the subordinate parts. This is effected, among other ways, by dwelling longer upon it ; and repetition by means of equivalent phrases may be occasionally resorted to. " The head and front of his offending: " " the end and de- sign" It is implied in the foregoing principle that wordy diffuseness should be especially avoided in subordinate clauses and statements. It is often better that a subordinate clause should be feeble or obscure, than that it should be raised out of its place by amplification. Gibbon, speaking of the deification of the Roman Emperors, says : " This legal, and, as it should seem, 70 NUMBER OF WORDS. injudicious profanation, so abhorrent to our stricter principles, was received with a very faint murmur by the easy nature of Polytheism." This is better than, " by Polytheism, which was of a nature easy and accommodating.' 1 '' (3.) In strong passion, when the mind is disposed to dwell npon the object of the passion. Chatham's famous address abounds in tautoiogies referable to this principle. "I am astonished, I am shocked, to hear such principles confessed; to hear them avowed in this house . and in this country." So, Bolingbrohe exclaims in an invec- tive against the times : " But all is little, and low, and mean among us." Cicero's exultation over Catiline's discomfiture was expressed by the use of four verbs nearly equivalent in meaning — u Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit." Affection and admiration lead to similar repetitions. It is desirable to avoid such tautologies as the " first ao-- gressor," the " standard pattern," the " verdant green," " some few." So, excess of inflection is objectionable ; as " chiefest," " extremest," " worser," " most highest." 62. II. Redundancy, or Pleonasm, consists of addi- tions not essential to the sense. As when something sufficiently implied in the words al- ready used is also separately expressed. The following is an extreme illustration : " They returned bach again to the same city from whence they came forth ; " the five words in italics are redundant. " The different departments of science and of art mutually reflect light on each other ; " either of the expres- sions in italics embodies the whole idea. A very common re- dundancy is exemplified in the expression, " the universal opin- ion of all men." In the sentence, " I wrote you a letter yesterday," the words a letter may be omitted, being already implied in " I wrote you." While Tautology adds a superfluous word in the same gram- matical place, Redundancy repeats the meaning in a different place : " I rejoiced at the glad sight." REDUNDANCY. 71 Campbell remarks that our language contains many com- pound words in which there is redundancy : as, unto, until, self- same, four-square, devoid, despoil, disannul, oftentimes, nowa- days, downfall, furthermore, wherewithal. Sometimes termi- nations are added to words without a specific meaning: as, mountain, fountain, meadow, valley, island, climate ; for mount, fount, &c. Again, we find double terminations of the same import, as in philosophical, tragical, political. In many such cases, the different words gradually acquire different senses — climate, clime ; politic, political. Redundancy is permissible, for the surer conveyance of important meaning, for emphasis, and in the language of passion and of poetic embellishment. In giving directions and instructions, it may be right to add an explicit statement to what is already implied ; as in military despatches and official instructions. " We have seen with our eyes" " we have heard with our ears" are redundancies that give emphasis to the action ex- pressed. The epithets and amplifications of poetry may add nothing to the meaning, but they fulfil the end of the art, which is to give pleasure. " The breezy call of incense-breathing morn " is an accumulation of picturesque circumstances to which the rules of brevity would not apply. Nevertheless, as the loading of style with epithets leads to the fault called Turgidity, it must be kept under the restrictions hereafter stated with reference to the quality of strength in composition. 63. III. CrRcrjMLocrTiox means a diffuse mode of expression, such that the remedy for it is, not omission of parts, but the re-casting of the whole in terser lan- guage. The following is an example : " Pope professed to have learned his poetry from Dryden, whom, whenever an opportu- 72 NUMBER OF WORDS. city was presented, he praised through the whole period of his existence with unvaried liberality ; and perhaps his character may receive some illustration, if a comparison be instituted be-, tween him and the man whose pupil he was ! " Condensed thus : — " Pope professed himself the pupil of Dryden, whom he lost no opportunity of praising ; and his character may be illus- trated by a comparison with his master." A Paraphrase, or Commentary, which professes to explain something difficult or obscure, is often a kind of circumlocution. The devices of exposition will be fully stated hereafter. What is called the paraphrase is usually a diffuse rendering of the original. As applied to Scripture, Campbell and Whately both animadvert on the practice of expanding " every passage hard or easy, nearly to the same degree." Examples of the dilution of a forcible original in a para- phrase are cited by Macaulay, from Patrick : — " In the Song of Solomon is an exquisitely beautiful verse. ' I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him that I am sick of love.' Patrick's version runs thus : ' So I turned myself to those of my neighbors and familiar acquaint- ance who were awakened by my cries to come and see what the matter was ; and conjured them, as they would answer it to God, that, if they met with my beloved, they would let him k n ow — What shall I say ? — What shall I desire you to tell him, but that I do not enjoy myself now that I want his company, nor can be well till I recover his love again ? ' " The term paraphrastic has come to signify a style enfeebled by circumlocution. Prolixity expresses the accumulation of circumstances and particulars to the extent of encumbering the meaning. There are lengthened forms used for giving emphasis and importance ; as, " It would take a good deal of argument to convince me of that," instead of simply "I doubt that;" " If one were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and CIRCUMLOCUTION. Y3 prosperous, one would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Corn- modus." The periphrasis here is justified by the momentous nature of the fact to be introduced. Circumlocution may be employed with poetic effect, as in Milton :— " Nine times the space that measures day and night To mortal men, he with his horrid crew Lay vanquished rolling in the fiery gulf." There is elegance in Cowley's periphrasis — " set himself up above all that was ever called sovereign in England." The Euphemism often takes the form of circumlocution, as in the following, commended by Longinus : " The appointed journey," for death ; " The fallen are borne forth publicly by the state," — that is, buried. . CHAPTER III. ARRANGEMENT OF WORDS. 64. As the grammatical order of words is not al- ways the best for effect, this order is frequently de- parted from in poetry, and sometimes in prose. Grammatically, in English, the subject precedes the predi- cate ; and, in constructions containing a transitive verb, the order is — subject, verb, object ; but an altered order may add to the force of the expression. Thus the predicate may be placed first, " Great is the mys- tery of godliness." " Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." " Silent they lie." " There appeared to them Moses and Elias." " The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar, And shrieks the wild sea-mew." " Ndbal (fool) is his name, and folly is with him." Campbell observes that our translation of the Bible has 4 74 ARRANGEMENT OF WORDS. missed the effect of the original in the passage, " Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city." By placing the participle of the predicate first, the force is restored : " Fallen, fallen, is Babylou, that great city." The verbal root may be made to precede the auxiliary in compound tenses; as, "go I must," "do it he shall." The object of the verb is brought forward to the place of emphasis in these examples : " Silver and gold have I none." " Such bursts of horrid thunder, Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never Remember to have heard." "They could take their rest, for they knew Lord Stratford -watched. Rim they feared, hirn they trusted, him they obeyed." The adverb, when unusually emphatic, is occasionally made to precede ; as, " Up goes my grave Impudence to the maid." The negative adverb may thus be made emphatic. " Not in the legions Of horrid hell, can come a devil more damn'd In ills to top Macbeth." " Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord," &c. The place immediately after a conjunction, adverb, or ad- verbial clause, beginning a sentence, is emphatic, as in Mil- ton : — " At last his sail-broad vans He spreads for flight." Also the place after the name of an object addressed : " Powers and dominions, deities of heaven, — Me, tho' just right and the fixed laws of heaven Did first create your leader, — " " Among many nations there was no king like Solomon ; never- theless, even Mm did outlandish women cause to sin." Thirdly, the place after a call to attention ; as, " Behold, now is the accepted time." In the following example, the inverted arrangement has to be aided by a pleonasm : " Your fathers, where are they ? and the prophets, do they live for ever ? " The foregoing are Campbell's chief illustrations of the change of order for effect. We have still to see the reasons. PLACE OF QUALIFYING WORDS. 75 65. There are certain principles of arrangement that enable ns more readily to apprehend the meaning of a complex statement.* The first is that qualifying words should precede the object that they qualify ; as, a Mack horse, a decidedly favorable answer. This principle is otherwise expressed thus : " No concrete image should be suggested until the materials for it have been presented." The reason is, that if the name of the concrete thing is given first, " horse," for example, the image formed by the mind is likely to be wrong ; probably a bay horse, as the most common, is pictured. Hence, when the word " black " is added, the mental image must be unmade ; the bay color has to be suppressed and the black inserted, unless we have been accustomed to suspend the act of conceiving until all the ex- pected qualifications are known. It is, therefore, better that the word black should prepare the way for the mention of horse. The English usage of placing the adjective before the noun is thus justified on principle. So with the adverb and the verb. As the predicate of a proposition modifies the subject, like an adjective immediately qualifying it, there is a ground for making the predicate precede the subject. The mention of "great" should precede "the mystery of godliness," as it is under the condition implied in u great " that the mystery is meant to be imagined. The following verse from Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner," although elliptical in its structure, illus- trates the general principle : — " Alone, alone, all all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea ! And never a saint took pity on My soul in agony." When the predicate verb is accompanied by some limit or qualification as its complement, the limiting circumstances ought to come first. The priority of the verb, as well as of * Taken from Herbert Spencer's Essay on the Philosophy of Style (Essays, p. 228). 76 ARRANGEMENT OF WORDS. the complement, is illustrated in the opening of Keats's " Hy- perion " : — " Dee~p in the shady sadness of a vale, Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, Far from the fiery noon and eve's one star, Sat gray-haired Saturn, quiet as a stone." A conditional clause precedes the main clause, from the same consideration. If the main clause stands first, the hearer conceives it unconditionally, and then has to re-shape his con- ception. And generally, subordinate clauses are properly made to come before their principal. Containing, as the subordinate proposition does, some qualifying or explanatory idea, its pri- ority prevents misconception of the principal one, and therefore saves the mental effort needed to correct such misconception. The following is an example of the conditional clause placed first : " Were the honor given to wealth and to title bestowed ex- clusively on high achievements and intrinsic worth, how immense would be the stimulus to progress ! " In the next example, two subordinate statements are given in advance, and the principal comes last. " The secrecy once maintained in respect to the parliamentary debates, is still thought needful in diplomacy; and, in virtue of this secret diplomacy, England may any day be unawares betrayed by its ministers into a war costing a hundred thousand lives, and hun- dreds of millions of treasure ; yet the English pique themselves on being a self-governed people ! " 66. A second principle is, that the words and expres- sions most nearly related in thought should be placed closest together. This consideration may prevent the foregoing principle from being carried out to the full. The longer the time that elapses between the mention of the qualifying clause and that which it qualifies, the longer must the mind be burdened with unemployed ideas ; and the burden is increased according to the number of qualifying clauses. Hence, other considerations being equal, preference is to be given to the arrangement that entails the fewest and the shortest suspensions. The following instance will illustrate what is meant : — ARRANGEMENT OF QTJALIFYrXG CLAUSES. 77 " A modern newspaper-statement, though probably true, would be laughed at, if quoted in a book as testimony ; but the letter of a court gossip is thought good historical evidence, if written some centuries ago." Here the closely related clauses, " a modern newspaper-statement," and " if quoted in a book as testimony," are too far apart. Then, again, if both the quali- fying clauses to " a newspaper-statement " ( u though probably true," and " if quoted in a book as testimony "), were to pre- cede, the suspension would be more than we are accustomed to. In such a case, the best arrangement is to place the sub- ject between the two qualifying members, thus bringing it close to both. " Though probably true, a modern newspaper-state- ment, quoted in a book as testimony, would be laughed at ; but the letter of a court gossip, if written some centuries ago, is thought good historical evidence." To give another example. " TTe came to our journey's end, at last, with no small difficulty, after much fatigue, through deep roads, and bad weather." This sentence violates the principle just laid down, the qualifications being all placed after the statement qualified. On the other hand, the strict carrying out of that principle would cause too many suspen- sions : " At last, with no small difficulty, after much fatigue, through deep roads, and bad weather, we came to our journey's end." By arranging the qualifying clauses on the plan of be- ginning with the most abstract, and by carrying backward the verb and its subject we came, so as to enclose them in the mid- dle of the qualifying clauses, and thereby shorten the suspen- sions, we get the best arrangement, as follows : " At last, with no small difficulty, and after much fatigue, we came, through deep roads, and bad weather, to our journey's end ! " In the consideration of the Sentence, there will be a farther reference to the principles of arrangement. 78 QUALITIES OF STYLE. CHAPTER IV. THE QUALITIES OF STYLE. 67. Under the great variety of descriptive words em- ployed to denote the merits and the demerits of style, we may discern a few leading qualities. In what has already been said regarding the Figures of Speech, and the Number and the Arrangement of Words, ex- planations have been furnished of many characteristics of style. A composition abounding in any one of the figures would be described by an epithet derived from the name of that figure ; as, Metaphorical, Antithetical, Epigrammatic, Hyperbolical, Ironical, Sarcastic, Elliptical. A profusion of figurative lan- guage generally would receive the designations — Figurative, Flowery, Ornate, Imaginative, Illustrative ; to which are opposed the Plain, Dry, Bald. The number of words employed deter- mines, on the one hand, the Diffuse or Verbose, and, on the other, the Terse or Concise. So, according to the arrangement of the words we would distinguish the Natural or Flowing from the Inverted or Involved style. With reference to Thought, or meaning, there are two chief qualities — Simplicity and Clearness. As regards Feeling, there is an important contrast between what is designated by the terms Strength, Energy, the Sub- lime, — and the qualities denominated Feeling, Pathos, and Beauty (in a narrow sense) ; a contrast answering to the oppo- sition of the Active and Passive sides of our nature. To these two classes of effects, we must add the peculiar qualities denoted by the Ludicrous, Humor and Wit. It is necessary, further, to consider the Melody of language, and also Expressiveness, that is, the suiting of the sound to the sense. Finally, a few observations are needed on the meanings of Taste. SIMPLICITY OF TERMS. T9 SIMPLICITY. 68. Simplicity is the quality of being easily under- stood. It is opposed, not so much to the complex, as to the abstruse. The possibility of being simple must depend, in the first in- stance, on the subject as compared with the capacity of the persons addressed. But apart from this, there are certain gen- eral peculiarities that render style more or less intelligible. 69. Simplicity may apply to the Terms, or to the Structure. Terms are simple, as opposed to abstruse and unin- telligible, on various grounds. (1.) They may represent common and familiar ob- jects and actions, instead of such as are rare and remote. In the sentence, " He that doeth these sayings is like to a man that buildeth his house upon a rock," every one of the terms has the simplicity belonging to things com- mon and familiar. Our native Saxon terms, and those foreign terms that have come into use among people generally, are the most intelligible of all. Our Latin derivatives are less understood by the unedu- cated. The phraseology of science aud of special arts and profes- sions, as Law, Medicine, Navigation, &c, is intelligible only to such as are acquainted with the subjects concerned. Many terms belong to scholarly erudition, and are more or less un- known to the mass of men ; for example, allusions to ancient mythology, and to the customs of remote nations. When a subject can be treated in familiar language, it is pre-eminently popular and intelligible. A man of great genius will sometimes contrive to express himself, even on a difficult subject, in popular phraseology ; but this power must soon find its limit. Johnson's remarks on Swift are in point here : " The peruser of Swift wants little previous knowledge ; it will be sufficient that he is acquainted with common words and com- 80 QUALITIES OF STYLE. mon things ; he has neither to mount elevations nor to explore profundities," &c. (2.) The terms are simple when they relate to things that are in their nature palpable and easily conceivable. The objects of our senses are of this nature — the things that we see, hear, touch, smell, taste. So are our familiar emo- tions and energies — love, hate, fear, will, desire, &c. But the world contains, besides these obvious things, a great number of subtle and impalpable agents, hidden forces, that neither the senses can discover nor the imagination realize. So that, while the sun, the stars, the mountains, rivers, fields, houses, bread, water, fire, are simple, — gas, molecule, electricity, latent heat, vital force, association of ideas, free-will, are impalpable and ob- scure. These last have to be understood by special study in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology, the Human Mind,