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As, forced from wind-guns, lead itself can fly,
And pond'rous slugs cut swiftly through the sky;
As clocks to weight their nimble motion owe,
The wheels above urged by the load below;
Me Emptiness and Dullness could inspire,
And were my elasticity and fire.

BOOK I. 163.

Fifthly, The enthusiasm of passion may have the effect to prolong passionate personification; but descriptive personification cannot be dispatched in too few words. A circumstantial description dissolves the charm, and makes the attempt to personify appear ridiculous.

Her fate is whisper'd by the gentle breeze,
And told in sighs to all the trembling trees;
The trembling trees, in ev'ry plain and wood,
Her fate remurmur to the silver flood;
The silver flood, so lately calm, appears

Swell'd with new passion, and o'erflows with tears;
The winds, and trees, and floods, her death deplore,
Daphne, our grief! our glory! now no more.

POPE'S PASTORALS, iv. 61.

Let grief or love have the power to animate the winds, the trees, the floods, provided the figure be dispatched in a single expression: even in that case, the figure seldom has a good effect; because grief or love of the pastoral kind, are causes rather too faint for so violent an effect as imagining the wind, trees, or floods, to be sensible beings. But when this figure is deliberately spread out, with great regularity and accuracy, through many lines, the reader, instead of relishing it, is struck with its ridiculous appearance.

What is personification?

Give examples of it.

REVIEW.

When does the mind bestow sensibility on inanimate things? In what manner do the plaintive passions find vent?

Give examples.

Is personification natural?

What evidence have we of this fact?

What examples from Ossian are given?

What example from Shakspeare?

Does terror bestow sensibility on inanimate objects?
Give examples.

What is the effect of joy?

Give an example.

Does personification always attribute life and intelligence to the objects personified?

Give examples in which it falls short of this effect.

To what is this sort of personification referred?

How many kinds of it are there, and what are they?
In what poems does descriptive personification abound?
Why are abstract terms personified in poetry?

Give examples.

Is passionate personification promoted by every passion?
What passions are averse to it?

What speech is disapproved, on this ground?

To what should passionate personification be confined?
How should descriptive personification be used?

Give an example of its improper use.

What is the effect of personifying familiar and base objects? Give an example.

To what else does the observation apply?

Give examples.

What is necessary in order to introduce a personification properly?

What writers sometimes violate this rule?

What observations are made on Shakspeare's personification of the winds?-on Pope's personification of dullness?

What is the effect of dwelling too long on descriptive personification?

What remark is made on the passage from Pope?

SECTION II.-Apostrophe.

This figure, and the former, are derived from the same principle. If, to humor a plaintive passion, we can bestow a momentary sensibility upon an inanimate object, it is not more difficult to bestow a momentary presence upon a sensible being who is absent:

Strike the harp in praise of Bragela, whom I left in the isle of mist, the spouse of my love. Dost thou raise thy fair face from the rock to find the sails of Cuchullin? The sea is rolling far distant, and its white foam shall deceive thee for my sails. Retire, for it is night, my love; and the dark winds sigh in thy hair. Retire to the hall of my feasts, and think of the times that are past; for I will not return till the storm of war is gone. O Connal, speak of wars and arms, and send her from my mind; for lovely with her raven-hair is the white-bosom'd daughter of Sorglan. FINGAL.-BOOK I.

Speaking of Fingal absent:

Happy are thy people, O Fingal; thine arm shall fight their battles. Thou art the first in their dangers, the wisest in the days of their peace: thou speakest, and thy thousands obey; and armies. tremble at the sound of thy steel. Happy are thy people, O Fingal.

This figure is sometimes joined with the former. Things inanimate, to qualify them for listening to a passionate expostulation, are not only personified, but also conceived to be present:

Helena.

Poor lord, is 't I
That chase thee from thy country, and expose
Those tender limbs of thine to the event

Of the none-sparing war? And is it I

That drive thee from the sportive court, where thou
Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark

Of smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers,

That ride upon the violent speed of fire,

Fly with false aim; pierce the still-moving air
That sings with piercing: do not touch my lord.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. ACT III. Sc. 4.

And let them lift ten thousand swords, said Nathos with a smile; the sons of car-borne Usnoth will never tremble in danger. Why dost thou roll with all thy foam, thou roaring sea of Ullin? why do ye rustle on your dark wings, ye whistling tempests of the sky? Do ye think, ye storms, that ye keep Nathos on the coast? No; his soul detains him, children of the night! Althos, bring my father's arms, &c. FINGAL.

Whither hast thou fled, O wind, said the king of Morven ! Dost thou rustle in the chambers of the south, and pursue the shower in other lands? Why comest not thou to my sails, to the blue face of my seas? The foe is in the land of Morven, and the King is absent. IBID.

Hast thou left thy blue course in heaven, golden-hair'd son of the sky? The west hath opened its gates; the bed of thy repose is there. The waves gather to behold thy beauty: they lift their trembling heads; they see thee lovely in thy sleep; but they shrink away with fear. Rest in thy shadowy cave, O Sun! and let thy return be in joy.

IBID.

Daughter of Heaven, fair art thou! the silence of thy face is pleasant. Thou comest forth in loveliness: the stars attend thy blue steps in the east. The clouds rejoice in thy presence, Moon! and brighten their dark-brown sides. Who is like thee in heaven, daughter of the night? The stars are ashamed in thy presence, and turn aside their sparkling eyes. Whither dost thou retire from thy course, when the darkness of thy countenance grows? Hast thou thy hall like Ossian? Dwell'st thou in the shadow of grief? Have thy sisters fallen from heaven? and are they who rejoiced with thee at night no more?—Yes, they have fallen, fair light; and often dost, thou retire to mourn.- -But thou thyself shalt, one night, fail; and leave thy blue path in heaven, The stars will then lift their heads: they who in thy presence were ashamed, will rejoice.

IBID.

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.

SECTION III.-Hyperbole.

In this figure, by which an object is magnified or diminished beyond truth, we have another effect of the foregoing principle. An object of an uncommon size, either very great of its kind, or very little, strikes us with surprise; and this emotion produces a momentary conviction, that the object is greater or less than it is in reality. The same effect, precisely, attends figurative grandeur or littleness; and hence the hyperbole, which expresses that momentary conviction. A writer, taking advantage of this natural delusion, warms his description greatly by the hyperbole; and the reader, even in his coolest moments, relishes the figure, being sensible that it is the operation of nature upon a glowing fancy.

It cannot have escaped observation, that a writer is commonly more successful in magnifying by an hyperbole, than in diminishing. The reason is, that a minute object contracts the mind, and fetters the power of imagination; but that the mind, dilated and inflamed with a grand object, moulds objects for its gratification with great facility. Longinus, with respect to a diminishing hyperbole, quotes the following ludicrous thought from a comic poet: "He was owner of a bit of ground no larger than a Lacedæmonian letter."* But, for the reason now given, the hyperbole has by far the greatest force in magnifying objects; of which take the following examples:

For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth; so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. GENESIS, Xiii. 15, 16.

When he speaks,

The air, a charter'd libertine, is still.

HENRY V.-ACT I. Sc. 1.

* Chapter 31, of his Treatise on the Sublime.

Now shield with shield, with helmet helmet clos'd,
To armor armor, lance to lance oppos'd.
Host against host with shadowy squadrons drew,
The sounding darts in iron tempests flew,
Victors and vanquish'd join promiscuous cries,
And shrilling shouts and dying groans arise;
With streaming blood the slipp'ry fields are died,
And slaughter'd heroes swell the dreadful tide.

ILIAD, iv. 508.

Quintilian is sensible that this figure is natural: "For," says he, "not contented with truth, we naturally incline to augment or diminish beyond it; and for that reason the hyperbole is familiar even among the vulgar and illiterate:" and he adds, very justly, "that the hyperbole is then proper, when the subject of itself exceeds the common measure."

Having examined the nature of this figure, and the principle on which it is erected, I proceed, as in the first section, to the rules by which it ought to be governed. And, in the first place, it is a capital fault to introduce an hyperbole in the description of any thing ordinary or familiar; for, in such a case, it is altogether unnatural, being destitute of surprise, its only foundation. Take the following instance, where the subject is extremely familiar, viz. swimming to gain the shore after a shipwreck:

I saw him beat the surges under him,

And ride upon their backs; he trod the water;
Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted

The surge most swoln that met him: his bold head
'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd
Himself with his good arms, in lusty strokes

To th' shore that o'er his wave-borne basis bow'd,
As stooping to relieve him.

TEMPEST.-ACT II. Sc. 1.

In the next place, it may be gathered from what is said, that an hyperbole can never suit the tone of any dispiriting passion: sorrow, in particular, will never prompt such a figure; for which reason the following hyperboles must be condemned as unnatural:

K. Rich. Aumerle, thou weep'st, my tender-hearted
cousin!

We'll make foul weather with despised tears;

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