Those tender limbs of thine to the event That drive thee from the fportive court, where thou Fly with false aim; pierce the still moving air, All's well that ends well, act 3. Sc. 4. And let them lift ten thousand fwords, faid Nathos with a fmile: the fons of car-borne Ufnoth will never tremble in danger. Why doft thou roll with all thy foam, thou roaring fea of Ullin; why do ye ruftle on your dark wings, ye whistling tempefts of the sky? Do ye think, ye ftorms, that ye keep Nathos on the coaft? No; his foul detains him; children of the night! Althos bring my father's arms, &c. Fingal. Whither haft thou fled, O wind, faid the King of Morven Doft thou ruftle in the chambers of the fouth, and pursue the fhower in other lands? Why comest not thou to my fails, to the blue face of my feas? The foe is in the land of Morven, and the King is abfent. Fingal. Haft thou left thy blue courfe in heaven, golden hair'd fon of the sky! The weft hath open'd its gates; the bed of thy repofe is there. The waves gather to behold thy beauty: they lift their trembling heads; they fee thee lovely in thy fleep; but they fhrink away with fear. Reft in thy fhadowy cave, O fun! and let thy return be in joy. Fingal. Daughter Daughter of heaven, fair art thou! the filence of thy face is pleasant. Thou comeft forth in loveliness: the stars attend thy blue fteps in the eaft. The clouds rejoice in thy prefence, O moon! and brighten their dark-brown fides. Who is like thee in heaven, daughter of the night? The stars are ashamed in thy prefence, and turn aside their sparkling eyes. Whither doft thou retire from thy course, when the darkness of thy countenance grows? Haft thou thy hall like Oflian? Dwelleft thou in the shadow of grief? Have thy fifters fallen from heaven; and are they who rejoiced with thee at night, no more ? Yes, they have fallen, fair light; and often daft thou retire to mourn. But thou thyself shalt, one night, fail; and leave thy blue path in heaven. The ftars will then lift their heads: they, who in thy prefence were afhamed, will rejoice. Fingal. This figure, like all others, requires an agitation of mind. In plain narrative, as, for example, in giving the genealogy of a family, it has no good effect: Fauno Picus pater; ifque parentem Te, Saturne, refert; tu fanguinis ultimus auctor. Eneid. vii. 48, SECT. SECT. III. HYPERBOLE. IN this figure, by which an object is magnified or diminished beyond the truth, we have another effect of the foregoing principle. An object uncommon with respect to fize, either very great of its kind or very little, ftrikes us with furprife; and this emotion forces upon the mind a momentary conviction that the object is greater or lefs than it is in reality *: the fame effect, precisely, attends figurative grandeur or littleness; and hence the hyperbole which expreffes this momentary conviction. A writer, taking advantage of this natural delufion, enriches his defcription greatly by the hyperbole and the reader, even in his cooleft moments, relithes this figure, being fenfible that it is the operation of nature upon a warm fancy. It cannot have efcaped obfervation, that a writer is generally more fuccefsful in magnifying by a hyperbole than in diminishing. The reafon is, that a minute object contracts the mind, and fetters its power of imagination; but that the mind, dilated and inflamed with a grand object, *See chapter 8. VOL. II. R moulds moulds objects for its gratification with great facility. Longinus, with respect to a diminishing hyperbole, cites the following ludicrous thought from a comic poet: "He was owner of a bit of "ground not larger than a Lacedemonian letter *." But, for the reafon now given, the hyperbole has by far the greater force in magnifying objects; of which take the following examples : For all the land which thou feeft, to thee will I give it, and to thy feed for ever. And I will make thy feed as the duft of the earth: fo that if a man can number the duft of the earth, then fhall thy feed also be numbered. Genefis xiii. 15. 16. Illa vel intactæ fegetis per fumma volaret Eneid. vii. 808. Atque imo barathri ter gurgite vaftos Sorbet in abruptum fluctus, rurfufque fub auras Æneid. iii. 421. Horrificis juxta tònat Ætna ruinis, Interdumque atram prorumpit ad æthera nubem, Turbine fumantem piceo et candente favilla : Attollitque globos flammarum, et fidera lambit. Æneid. iii. 571. Chap. 31. of his treatife on the fublime. Speaking Now fhield with fhield, with helmet helmet clos'd, Iliad iv. 508. The following may alfo pafs, though ftretched pretty far. E conjungendo à temerario ardire Gierufalem, cant. 6. ft. 46. Quintilian is fenfible that this figure is natural: "For," fays he, "not contented with truth, we naturally incline to augment or di *L. 8. cap. 6. in fin. R 2 "minish |