Cicero, as I before observed, is one of the most remarkable patterns of a harmonious style. His love of it, however, is too visible; and the pomp of his numbers sometimes detracts from his strength. That noted close of his, esse videatur, which, in the Oration Pro Lege Manilia, occurs eleven times, exposed him to censure among his cotemporaries. We must observe, however, in defence of this great orator, that there is a remarkable union in his style, of harmony with ease, which is always a great beauty; and if his harmony be sometimes thought studied, that study appears to have cost him little trouble.

Among our English classics, not many are distinguished for musical arrangement. Milton, in some of his prose works, has very finely turned periods; but the writers of his age indulged a liberty of inversion, which now would be reckoned contrary to purity of style; and though this allowed their sentences to be more stately and sonorous, yet it gave them too much of a Latinised construction and order. Of later writers, Shaftesbury is, upon the whole, the most correct in his numbers. As his car was delicate, he has attended to music in all his sentences; and he is peculiarly happy in this respect, that he has avoided the monotony into which writers, who study the grace of sound, are very apt to fall; having diversifed his periods with great variety. Mr. Addison has also much harmony in his style; more easy and smooth, but less varied, than Lord Shaftesbury. Sir William Temple is, in general, very flowing and agreeable. Archbishop Tillotson, is too often careless and languid; and is much outdone by Bishop Atterbury in the music of his periods. Dean Swift despised musical arrangement altogether.

Hitherto I have discoursed of agreeable sound, or modulation, in general. It yet remains to treat of a higher beauty of this kind; the sound adapted to the sense. The former was no more than a simple accompaniment, to please the ear; the latter supposes a peculiar expression given to the music. We may remark two degrees of it: First, the current of sound, adapted to the tenor of a discourse; next, a particular resemblance effected between some object, and the sounds that are employed in describing it.

First, I say, the current of sound may be adapted to the tenor of a discourse. Sounds have, in many respects, a correspondence with our ideas; partly natural, partly the effect of artificial associations. Hence it happens, that any one modulation of sound continued, imprints on our style a certain character and expression. Sentences constructed with the Ciceronian fulness and swell, produce the impression of what is important, magnificent, sedate: for this is the natural tone which such a course of sentiment assumes. But they suit no violent passion, no eager reasoning, no familiar address. These always require the measures brisker, easier, and often more abrupt. And,

inate, such as we find the style of too many. Some sentences therefore, which we bave studiously formed into melody, should be thrown loose, that they may not seem too much laboured: nor ought we ever to omit any proper or expressive word, for the sake of smoothing a period.'

145

therefore, to swell, or to let down the periods, as
mands, is a very important rule in oratory. No one
ver, supposing it to produce no bad effect from satiety
to all different compositions; nor even to all the parts
composition. It were as absurd to write a panegyric, an
tive, in a style of the same cadence, as to set the words o
love-song to the air of a warlike march.

Observe, how finally the following sentence of Cicero, is adapted to represent the tranquillity and ease of a satisfied state. Etsi homini nihil est magis optandum quam prospera, æquabilis, perpetuaque fortuna, secundo vitæ sine ulla offensione cursu; tamen, si mihi tranquilla et placata omnia fuissent incredibili quâdam et penè divinâ, quâ nunc vestro beneficio fruor, lætitiæ voluptate caruissem. Nothing was ever more perfect in its kind: it paints, if we may so speak, to the car. But, who would not have laughed, if Cicero had employed such periods, or such a cadence as this, in inveighing against Mark Antony, or Catiline? What is requisite, therefore, is, that we previously fix, in our mind, a just idea of the general tone of sound which suits our subject; that is, which the sentiments we are to express, most naturally assume, and in which they most commonly vent themselves; whether round or smooth, or stately and solemn, or brisk and quick, or interrupted and abrupt. This general idea must direct the modulation of our periods; to speak in the style of music, must give us the key note, must form the ground of the melody; varied and diversified in parts, according as either our sentiments are diversified, or as is requisite for producing a suitable variety to gratify the ear.

It may be proper to remark, that our translators of the Bible have often been happy in suiting their numbers to the subject. Grave, solemn, and majestic subjects undoubtedly require such an arrangement of words as runs much on long syllables; and, particularly, they require the close to rest upon such. The very first verses of the Bible, are remarkable for this melody; 'In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth; and the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.' Several other passages, particularly some of the Psalms, afford striking examples of this sort of grave, melodious construction. Any composition that rises considerably above the ordinary tone of prose, such as monumental inscriptions, and panegyrical characters, naturally runs into numbers of this kind.

But, in the next place, besides the general correspondence of the current of sound with the current of thought, there may be a more particular expression attempted, of certain objects, by means of resembling sounds. This can be, sometimes, accomplished in prose composition; but there only in a more faint degree; nor is it so much expected there. In poetry, chiefly, it is looked for; where attention to sound is more demanded, and where the inversions and

Orat ad Quirites, post Reditum.

berties of poetical style give us a greater command of sound; assisted, too, by the versification, and that cantus obscurior, to which we are naturally led in reading poetry. This requires a little more illustration.

The sounds of words may be employed for representing, chiefly, three classes of objects; first, other sounds; secondly, motion; and thirdly, the emotions and passions of the mind.

First, I say, by a proper choice of words, we may produce a resemblance of other sounds which we mean to describe, such as, the noise of waters, the roaring of winds, or the murmuring of streams. This is the simplest instance of this sort of beauty. For the medium through which we imitate here, is a natural one; sounds represented by other sounds; and between ideas of the same sense, it is easy to form a connection. No very great art is required in a poet, when he is describing sweet and soft sounds, to make use of such words as have most liquids and vowels, and glide the softest; or, when he is describing harsh sounds, to throw together a number of harsh syllables which are of difficult pronunciation. Here the common structure of language assists him; for it will be found, that in most languages, the names of many particular sounds are so formed, as to carry some affinity to the sound which they signify; as with us, the whistling of winds, the bus and hum of insects, the hiss of serpents, the crash of falling timber; and many other instances, where the word has been plainly framed upon the sound it represents. I shall produce a remarkable example of this beauty from Milton, taken from two passages in Paradise Lost, describing the sound made, in the one, by the opening of the gates of hell; in the other, by the opening of those of heaven. The contrast between the two, displays, to great advantage, the poet's art. The first is the opening of hell's gates:

-On a sudden, open fly,

With impetuous recoil, and jarring sound,

Th' infernal doors; and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder.

Observe, now, the smoothness of the other:

-Heaven opened wide

Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound,

On golden hinges turning.

B. it

B. ii.

The following beautiful passage from Tasso's Gierusalemme, has been often admired on account of the imitation effected by sound

of the thing represented:

Chiama gli habitator de l'ombre eterne
Il rauco suon de la Tartareo tromba:

Treman le spaciose atra caverne,

Et l'aer cieco a quel rumor rimbomba;
Ni stridendo cosi de la superne
Regioni dele cielo, il folgor piomba ;
Ne si scossa giammai la terra,
Quand i vapori in sen gravida serra.

CANT. iv. STANZ. 4.

The second class of objects, which the sound of words is often employed to imitate, is, motion; as it is swift or slow, violent er

gentle, equable or interrupted, easy or accompanied with effort. Though there be no natural affinity between sound, of any kind, and motion, yet, in the imagination, there is a strong one; as appears from the connection between music and dancing. And, therefore, here it is in the poet's power to give us a lively idea of the kind of motion he would describe, by means of sounds which correspond, in our imagination with that motion. Long syllables naturally give the impression of slow motion; as in this line of Virgil: Olli inter sese magna vi brachia tollunt.

A succession of short syllables presents quick motion to the mind; as, Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum.

Both Homer and Virgil are great masters of this beauty; and their works abound with instances of it; most of them, indeed, so often quoted, and so well known, that it is needless to produce them. I shall give one instance, in English, which seems happy. It is the description of a sudden calm on the seas, in a poem, entitled, The Fleece.

With easy course

The vessels glide; unless their speed be stopp'd
By dead calms, that oft lie on these smooth seas
When every zephyr sleeps; then the shrouds drop;
The downy feather, on the cordage hung,

Moves not; the flat sea shines like yellow gold
Fus'd in the fire, or like the marble floor

Of some old temple wide.

The third set of objects which I mentioned the sound of words as capable of representing, consists of the passions and emotions of the mind. Sound may, at first view, appear foreign to these; but, that here also, there is some sort of connection, is sufficiently prored by the power which music has to awaken, or to assist certain passions, and, according as its strain is varied, to introduce one train of ideas, rather than another. This, indeed, logically speaking, cannot be called a resemblance between the sense and the sound, seeing long or short syllables have no natural resemblance to any thought or passion. But if the arrangement of syllables, by their sound alone, recal one set of ideas more readily than another, and dispose the mind for entering into that affection which the poet means to raise, such arrangement may, justly enough, be said to resemble the sense, or be similar and correspondent to it. I admit, that, in many instances, which are supposed to display this beauty of accommodation of sound to the sense, there is much room for imagination to work; and, according as a reader is struck by a passage, he will often fancy a resemblance between the sound and the sense, which others cannot discover. He modulates the numbers to his own disposition of mind; and, in effect, makes the music which he imagines himself to hear. However, that there are real instances of this kind, and that poetry is capable of some such expression, cannot be doubted. Dryden's Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, affords a very beautiful exemplification of it, in the English language. Without much study or reflection, a poet describing pleasure, joy, and

agreeable objects, from the feeling of his subject, naturally runs into smooth, liquid, and flowing numbers.

Brisk and lively sensations, exact quicker and more animated num

Littus in Hesperium.

EN. VII.

Melancholy and gloomy subjects, naturally express themselves in slow measures, and long words:

In those deep solitudes and awful cells,
Where heavenly pensive contemplation dwells.

Et caligantem nigra formidine lucum.

I have now given sufficient openings into this subject: a moderate acquaintance with the good poets, either ancient or modern, will suggest many instances of the same kind. And with this, I finish the discussion of the structure of sentences: having fully considered them under all the heads I mentioned; of perspicuity, unity, strength, and musical arrangement.

LECTURE XIV.

ORIGIN AND NATURE OF FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE.

HAVING now finished what related to the construction of sentences, I proceed to other rules concerning style. My general division of the qualities of style, was into perspicuity and ornament. Perspicuity, both in single words and in sentences, I have considered. Ornament, as far as it arises from a graceful, strong, or melodious construction of words, has also been treated of. Another, and a great branch of the ornament of style, is, figurative language; which is now to be the subject of our consideration, and will require a full discussion.

Our first inquiry must be, what is meant by figures of speech?* In general, they always imply some departure from simplicity of

*On the subject of figures of speech, all the writers who treat of rhetoric or composition, have insisted largely. To make references, therefore, on this subject were endless On the foundations of fignative language, in general, one of the most sensible, and instructive writers appears to me, to be M Marsais, in his Truite des Tropes pour servir d'Introduction à la Rhetorique et à la Logique. For observarious on particular figures, the Elemen's of Criticism may be consulted, where the subject is fully handled, and illustrated by a great variety of examples.