the leading theme. It differs from one class of metaphors only in being more extended. Indeed, this class of metaphors, referring to a real scene or event, are denominated metaphorical allusions, or allusive metaphors; as, “The selfseeking will betray his friend or brother with a Judas-kiss." "The invisibility of the knight constituted a part of his greatness; and the Moses-veil doubled the glory which it concealed." The following are additional illustrations of this class of figures: "He [the small poet] will take three grains of wit like the elixir, and projecting it upon the iron age, turn it immediately into gold. All the business of mankind has presently vanished; the whole world has kept holiday; there have been no men but heroes and poets, no women but nymphs and shepherdesses; trees have borne fritters, and rivers flowed plum-porridge. When he writes, he commonly steers the sense of his lines by the rhyme that is at the end of them, as butchers do calves by their tails. For when he has made one line, which is easy enough, and has found out some sturdy hard word that will but rhyme, he will hammer the sense upon it, like a piece of hot iron upon an anvil, into what form he pleases." — S. Butler. "Some are called at age at fourteen, some at one-and-twenty, some never; but all men late enough; for the life of a man comes upon him slowly and insensibly. But as when the sun approaches toward the gates of the morning, he first opens a little eye of heaven, and sends away the spirits of darkness, and gives light to a cock, and calls up the lark to matins, and by and by gilds the fringes of a cloud, and peeps over the eastern hills, thrusting out his golden horns, like those which decked the brows of Moses when he was forced to wear a veil, because himself had seen the face of God; and still, while a man tells the story, the sun gets up higher, till he shows a fair face and a full light, and then he shines one whole day, under a cloud often, and sometimes weeping great and little showers, and sets quickly; so is a man's reason and his life." — J. Taylor. We reckon more than five months to harvest. That Marah was never dry. No art could sweeten, no draught could exhaust its perennial waters of bitterness. § 344. The third class of Representative Figures, or those in which the mental condition of the speaker is represented as different from the reality, may be distributed into three species, according as they respect the personality of the speaker, that of the hearer, or the nature of the thought or feeling represented itself. The first species is PROSOPOPEIA, in which the speaker personates another; as where Milo is introduced by Cicero as speaking through his lips: "Attend, I pray; hearken, O citizens: I have killed Publius Clodius by this sword and by this right hand; I have kept off his rage from your necks, which no laws, no courts of judicature, could restrain,” etc. It is sometimes joined with personification, in which case inanimate or irrational things are represented as speaking; as in Cicero's first oration against Catiline, the republic is made the speaker and addresses Cicero himself: "What are you doing? Are you suffering him whom you have found to be an enemy, who you see is to be at the head of the war, whom you perceive our enemies wait for in their camp as their general, who has been the contriver of this wickedness, the chief of the conspiracy, the exciter of slaves and profligate citizens, to leave the city which is rather to bring him in than let him out? Will you not order him to be imprisoned, condemned, and executed? Sometimes this figure takes the form of a colloquy or a dialogue. This was the ancient sermocinatio. How does God reveal himself in Nature? She answers thee with loud voices, with a thousand tongues: God is love. The second species is APOSTROPHE, in which the speaker, instead of addressing directly his proper hearer, turns himself to some other person or thing, either really or only in imagination present. Thus in This figure abounds in the orations of Cicero. his first against Catiline: "I desire, senators, to be merciful, but not to appear negligent in so great dangers of the State; though at present I cannot but condemn myself of remissness. There is a camp formed in Italy at the entrance of Etruria, against the State; our enemies increase daily; but we see the commander of the camp and general of the ene mies within our walls, in the very senate, contriving some intestine ruin to the State. If, now, Catiline, I should order you to be seized and put to death," etc. Again, in his defense of Milo, he turns to his brother Quintus and addresses him as if present: "And how shall I answer it to you, my brother Quintus, the partner of my misfortunes, who art now absent?" The third species of figures of this class which respect a change in the represented conception of the object by the speaker from the reality, includes irony, doubt, and interrogation. IRONY is a figure in which the speaker represents his thought in a form that properly expresses the directly opposite of his opinion. It is employed mostly for purposes of playfulness or scorn and contempt. "Silence at length the gay Antinous broke, But, Mr. Speaker, "we have a right to tax America." O inestimable right! O wonderful, transcendent right! the assertion of which has cost this country thirteen provinces, six islands, one hundred thousand lives, and seventy millions of money. O invaluable right! for the sake of which we have sacrificed our rank among nations, our importance abroad, and our happiness at home! DOUBT, also called aporia and dubitatio, is a figure in which the speaker represents himself as in doubt, for the purpose of winning a stronger confidence from the hearers. Thus, Cicero in his oration for Cluentius: "I know not which way to turn myself. Shall I deny the scandal thrown upon him of bribing the judges? Can I say, the people were not told of it?" etc. INTERROGATION is a figure in which a strong and confident assertion is represented under the form of an inquiry or demand. Have any alarms been occasioned by the emancipation of our Catholic brethren? Has the bigoted malignity of any individuals been crushed? or has the stability of the government or that of the country been weakened? or is one million of subjects stronger than four millions. § 345. Those forms of Figurative Energy which depend on the structure of the sentence respect either the order and connection of the parts, or the completeness and length of the entire sentence. They include Inversion and Anacoluthon, Aposiopesis and Sententiousness. 346. INVERSION is a figure in which the arrangement of the parts of a sentence is changed from the usual syntactical order. The general principle of energy in regard to the arrangement of the parts of a sentence is, that the more important words or phrases be placed first or last, and the less important be thrown into the middle. This principle, indeed, applies also to the arrangement of words in the members. Words of transition, of every class, as "however," "besides,” 66 therefore," and the like, should in accordance with this principle be thrown, whenever practicable, into the middle of the sentence; should be, in other words, postpositive and not prepositive. So, likewise, merely explanatory members or phrases should be neither the first nor the last on the mind, unless they are to be made emphatic. But the unbending syntax of our language allows but little liberty to the orator in this respect. It is here incomparably inferior to the ancient languages which, by the multiplicity of their inflections, admitted readily any desired arrangement of the words and phrases. It is, however, even here superior to some other modern languages; and without offending against its essential principles, the orator may impart much energy to discourse by authorized deviations from the ordinary structure of the sentence. As the subject is naturally the first thing to be presented to the mind, our language requires that ordinarily it be placed first in the sentence. But sometimes it is the predicate in whole or in part, or the mode of the copula, upon which the orator wishes the attention more particularly to be fixed. To accomplish this inversion, in the first place, we have certain words and forms of expression which are used for this purpose alone and are in themselves utterly destitute of meaning; such as, there, there is, it is. There is a feeling of the sublime in contemplating the shock of armies' just as there is in contemplating the devouring energy of a tempest; and this so elevates and engrosses the whole man, that his eye is blind to the tears of bereaved parents, and his ear is deaf to the piteous moan of the dying, and the shriek of their desolated families. There is a gracefulness in the picture of a youthful warrior burning for distinction on the field, etc. It gives me pleasure to advance a further testimony in behalf of that government with which it has pleased God, who appointed to all men the bounds of their habitation, to bless that portion of the globe that we occupy. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ which has poured the light of day into all the intricacies of this contemplation. Again, when the predicate is separated in part or in whole from the copula, the predicate or a part of it may be placed first. "Great is Diana of the Ephesians." His faithful dogs howl on his hills, and his boars which he used to pursue, rejoice. Fallen is the arm of battle; the mighty among the valiants is low! Further, the qualifying parts of a sentence, when they are to be made emphatic, may be placed first without violating the principles of the language. So deeply were they impressed with the sense of their wrongs, that they would not even accept of life from their oppressors. Once more, in the objective relation of the sentence, our language ordinarily requires that the object follow its verb. For the sake of energy, however, inversion is often allowable here. All that I have and all that I am and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it. |