Sed mihi vel Tellus optem prius ima dehifcat; Eneid. iv. 1. 24. Thus, to explain the effects of flander, it is imagined to be a voluntary agent: No, 'tis Slander; Whofe edge is fharper than the sword; whofe tongue All corners of the world, kings, queens, and states, Shakespear, Cymbeline, act 3.fc. 4 As alfo human paffions: take the following ex ample : For Pleasure and Revenge Have ears more deaf than adders, to the voice Of any true decifion. Troilus and Creffida, act 2. fc. 4. Virgil explains fame and its effects by a still greater variety of action *. And Shakespear perfonifies death and its operations in a manner extremely fanciful: * Æneid. iv. 173. Within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king, Keeps Death his court; and there the antic fits, To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks; As if his flesh, which walls about our life, Bores through his caftle-walls, and farewell king. Not lefs fuccefsfully is life and action given even to fleep: King Henry. How many thoufands of my pooreft fub. jects Are at this hour afleep! O gentle Sleep, Nature's foft nurse, how have I frighted thee, That thou no more wilt weigh my eye-lids down, And steep my senses in forgetfulness ? Why rather, Sleep, ly'ft thou in fmoky cribs, Upon uneafy pallets ftretching thee, And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy flumber, Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great, Under the canopies of coftly ftate, And lull'd with founds of fweeteft melody? O thou dull god, why ly'st thou with the vile In loathfome beds, and leav'ft the kingly couch, Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast, And And in the vifitation of the winds, Who take the ruffian billows by the top, Curling their monftrous heads, and hanging them Deny it to a king? Then, happy low! lie down; Second Part Henry IV. act 3. fc. I. I shall add one example more, to show that defcriptive perfonification may be used with propriety, even where the purpose of the difcourfe is inftruction merely : Oh! let the fteps of youth be cautious, The precipices we may fall into. Therefore let Virtue take him by the hand : Southern. Hitherto Ch. XX. Hitherto fuccefs has attended our steps; but whether we shall complete our progrefs with the fame fuccefs, feems doubtful; for though it was to be expected, that by this time every difficulty fhould be over, yet when we look back to the expreffions mentioned in the beginning, thirty ground, furious dart, and fuch like, it feems not lefs difficult than at first to say whether there be here any fort of perfonification. Such expreffions evidently raise not the flightest conviction of fenfibility: nor do 1 think they amount to defcriptive perfonification; because, in them, we do not even figure the ground or the dart to be animated. If fo, they cannot at all come under the present fubject. And to show this more clearly, I fhall endeavour to explain what effect fuch expreffions have naturally upon the mind. In the expreffion angry ocean, for example, do we not tacitly compare the ocean in a ftorm, to a man in wrath? It is by this tacit comparison that the expreffion acquires a force or elevation, above what is found in an epithet proper to the object: for I have had occafion to fhow *, that a thing inanimate acquires a certain elevation by being compared to a fenfible being. And this very comparison demonftrates that there is no perfonification in fuch expreffions; becaufe, by the very nature of a comparison, the things compared are kept diftinct, and the native appear * Chap. 19. ance ance of each is preferved. It will be fhown afterward, that expreffions of this kind belong to another figure, which I term a figure of Speech, and which employs the feventh section of the prefent chapter. Though thus in general we can distinguish defcriptive perfonification from what is merely a figure of speech, it is however often difficult to fay, with respect to fome expreffions, whether they be of the one kind or of the other. Take the following inftances. The moon fhines bright: in fuch a night as this, Merchant of Venice, at 5.fc. 1. I have seen Th' ambitious ocean fwell, and rage, and foam, Julius Cafar, alt 1. fc. 6. With respect to these, and numberless other inftances of the fame kind, it must depend upon the reader, whether they be examples of perfonification, or of a figure of fpeech merely a fprightly imagination will advance them to the former clafs; with a plain reader they will remain in the latter. |