The following is an instance of personification and apostrophe united: "O thou sword of the Lord! how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put thyself up into thy scabbard, rest and be still! How can it be quiet, seeing the Lord hath given it a charge against Askelon, and against the seashore? there hath he appointed it." . . .
A principal error, in the use of the Apostrophe, is, to deck the object addressed with affected ornaments; by which authors relinquish the expression of passion, and substitute for it the language of fancy.
Another frequent error is, to extend this figure to too great length. The language of violent passion is always concise, and often abrupt. It passes suddenly from one object to another. It often glances at a thought, starts from it, and leaves it unfinished. The succession of ideas is irregular, and connected by distant and uncommon relations. On all these accounts, nothing is more unnatural than long speeches, uttered by persons under the influence of strong passions. Yet this error occurs in several poets of distinguished reputation.
Antithesis
The next figure in order, is Antithesis. Comparison is founded on the resemblance; antithesis, on the contrast or opposition of two objects. Contrast has always the effect, to make each of the contrasted objects appear in the stronger light. White, for instance, never appears so bright as when it is opposed to black; and when both are viewed together. An author, in his defence of a friend against the charge of murder, expresses himself thus: "Can you believe that the person whom he scrupled to slay, when he might have done so with full justice, in a convenient place, at a proper time, with secure impunity; he made no scruple to murder against justice, in an unfavourable place, at an unseasonable time, and at the risk of capital condemnation?" The following examples further illustrate this figure.
- Tho' deep, yet clear; tho' gentle, yet not dull;
Strong, without rage; without o'erflowing, full. - "If you wish to enrich a person, study not to increase his stores, but to diminish his desires."
- "If you regulate your desires according to the standard of nature, you will never be poor; if according to the standard of opinion, you will never be rich."
Maxims
A maxim, or moral saying, very properly receives the form of the two last examples; both because it is supposed to be the fruit of meditation, and because it is designed to be engraven on the memory, which recalls it more easily by the help of such contrasted expressions. But where such sentences frequently succeed each other; where this becomes an author's favourite and prevailing manner of expressing himself, his style appears too much studied and laboured; it gives us the impression of an author attending more to his manner of saying things, than to the things themselves.
Hyperbole
The next figure concerning which we are to treat is called Hyperbole or Exaggeration. It consists in magnifying an object beyond its natural bounds. In all languages, even in common conversation, hyperbolical expressions very frequently occur: as swift as the wind; as white as the snow; and the like; and the common forms of compliment, are almost all of them extravagant hyperboles. If any thing be remarkably good or great in its kind, we are instantly ready to add to it some exaggerating epithet, and to make it the greatest or best we ever saw. The imagination has always a tendency to gratify itself, by magnifying its present object, and carrying it to excess. More or less of this hyperbolical turn will prevail in language, according to the liveliness of imagination among the people who speak it. Hence young people deal much in hyperboles. Hence the language of the Orientals was far more hyperbolical, than that of the Europeans, who are of more phlegmatic, or, perhaps we may say, of more correct imagination. Hence, among all writers in early times, and in the rude periods of society, we may expect this figure to abound. Greater experience, and more cultivated society, abate the warmth of imagination, and chasten the manner of expression.
Hyperboles are of two kinds; either such as are employed in description, or such as are suggested by the warmth of passion. All passions without exception, love, terror, amazement, indignation, and even grief, throw the mind into confusion, aggravate their objects, and of course prompt a hyperbolical style. Hence the following sentiments of Satan in Milton, as strongly as they are described contain nothing but what is natural and proper; exhibiting the picture of a mind agitated with rage and despair.
Me, miserable! which way shall I flyThe fear of an enemy augments the conceptions of the size of their leader. "I saw their chief," says the scout of Ossian, "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."
Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is Hell, myself am Hell;
And in the lowest depth, a lower deep,
Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide,
To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven.
The errors frequent in the use of Hyperboles, arise either from overstraining, or introducing them on unsuitable occasions. . . .
Vision
Vision [or the historic present] is another figure of speech, which is proper only in animated and warm composition. It is produced when, instead of relating something that is past, we use the present tense, and describe it as actually passing before our eyes. Thus Cicero, in his fourth oration against Catiline: "I seem to myself to behold this city, the ornament of the earth, and the capital of all nations, suddenly involved in one conflagration. I see before me the slaughtered heaps of citizens, lying unburied in the midst of their ruined country. The furious countenance of Cethegus rises to my view, while with a savage joy, he is triumphing in your miseries."
This manner of description supposes a sort of enthusiasm, which carries the person who describes, in some measure out of himself; and, when well executed, must needs, by the force of sympathy, impress the reader or hearer very strongly.
Concluded on page five
