Earth felt the wound; and nature, from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of wo,
That all was lost.

The third and highest degree of this figure is yet to be mentioned; when inanimate objects are represented, not only as feeling and acting, but as speaking to us, or listening while we address them. This is the boldest of all rhetorical figures; it is the style of strong passion only, and therefore should never be attempted, except when the mind is considerably heated and agitated. Milton affords a very beautiful example of this figure, in that moving and tender address which Eve makes to Paradise, immediately before she is compelled to leave it.

Oh, unexpected stroke, worse than of death!
Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? Thus leave
Thee, native soil; these happy walks and shades,
Fit haunt of gods; where I had hope to spend,
Quiet, though sad, the respite of that day
Which must be mortal to us both? O flowers!
That never will in other climate grow;
My early visitation, and my last

At even; which I bred up with tender hand
From your first opening buds, and gave you names!
Who now shall rear you to the sun, or rank

Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount?

This is the real language of nature and of female passion.

In the management of this sort of personification two rules are to be observed. First, never attempt it unless promoted by strong passion, and never continue it when the passion begins to subside. The second rule is, never personify an object which has not some dignity in itself, and which is incapable of making a proper figure in the elevation to which we raise it. To address the body of a deceased friend is natural; but to address the clothes which he wore, introduces low and degrading ideas. So, likewise, addressing the several parts of the body, as if they were animated, is not agreeable to the dignity of passion. For this reason the following passage in Pope's Eloisa to Abelard is liable to censure;

Dear, fatal name! rest ever unreveal'd,
Nor pass these lips, in holy silence seal'd.
Hide it my heart, within that close disguise,
Where, mix'd with God's, his lov'd idea lies!
O write it not, my hand !-his name appears
Already written-blot it out, my tears.

Here the name of Abelard is first personified; which as the name of a person often stands for the person himself, is exposed to no objection. Next, Eloisa personifies her own heart; and, as the heart is a dignified part of the human frame, and is often put for the mind, this also may pass without censure. But when she addresses her hand, and tells it not to write his name, this is forced and unnatural. Yet the figure becomes still worse when she exhorts her fears to blot out what her hand had written. The two last lines are indeed altogether unsuitable to the tenderness which breathes through that inimitable poem.

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APOSTROPHE is an address to a real person, one who is either absent or dead, as if he were present and listening to us. This figure is in boldness a degree lower than personification; since it requires less effort of imagination to suppose persons present who are dead or absent, than to animate insensible beings, and direct our discourse to them. The poems

of Ossian abound in beautiful instances of this figure."Weep on the rocks of roaring winds, O maid of Inistore. Bend thy fair head over the waves, thou fairer than the ghost of the hills, when it moves in a sun beam at noon over the silence of Morven. He is fallen! Thy youth is low; pale beneath the sword of Cuchullin."

COMPARISON, ANTITHESIS, INTERROGATION, EXCLAMATION, AND OTHER FIGURES OF SPEECH.

A COMPARISON or simile is, when the resemblance between two objects is expressed in form, and usually pursued more fully than the nature of a metaphor

admits. As when we say, "The actions of princes are like those great rivers, the course of which every one beholds, but their springs have been seen by few." This short instance will show that a happy comparison is a sort of sparkling ornament, which adds lustre and beauty to discourse.

All comparisons may be reduced under two heads, explaining and embellishing comparisons. For when a writer compares an object with any other thing, it always is, or ought to be, with a view to make us understand that object more clearly, or to render it more pleasing. Even abstract reasoning admits explaining comparisons. For instance, the distinction between the powers of sense and imagination is in Mr. Harris's Hermes illustrated by a simile : "As wax, says, he, "would not be adequate to the purpose of signature, if it had not the power to retain as well as to receive the impression, the same holds of the soul with respect to sense and imagination. Sense in its receptive power, and imagination its retentive. Had it sense without imagination, it would not be as wax, but as water; where, though all impressions be instantly made, yet, as soon as they are made, they are lost." In comparisons of this kind, perspicuity and usefulness are chiefly to be studied.

But embellishing comparisons are those which most frequently occur. Resemblance, it has been observed, is the foundation of this figure. Yet resem-blance must not be taken in too strict a sense for actual similitude. Two objects may raise a train of concordant ideas in the mind, though they resemble each other, strictly speaking, in nothing. For example, to describe the nature of soft and melancholy music, Ossian says, "The music of Carryl was, like the memory of joys that are past, pleasant and mournful to the soul." This is happy and delicate; yet, no kind of music bears any resemblance to the memory of past joys.

We shall now consider when comparisons may be introduced with propriety. Since they are the lan

guage of imagination, rather than of passion, an author can hardly commit a greater fault, than in the midst of passion to introduce a simile. Our writers of tragedies often err in this respect. Thus, Addison in bis Cato makes Portius, just after Lucia had bid him farewell forever, express himself in a studied comparison.

Thus o'er the dying lamp th' unsteady flame
Hangs quiv'ring on a point, leaps off by fits,
And falls again, as loth to quit its hold.

Thou must not go; my soul still hovers o'er thee,
And can't get loose.

As comparison is not the style of strong passion,so, when designed for embellishment, it is not the language of a mind totally unmoved. Being a figure of dignity, it always requires some elevation in the subject, to make it proper. It supposes the imagination to be enlivened, though the heart is not agitated by passion. The language of simile lies in the middle region, between the highly pathetic and the very humble style. It is, however, a sparkling ornament, and must consequently dazzle and fatigue, if it recur too often. Similes, even in poetry, should be employed with moderation; but in prose much more so; otherwise the style will become disgustingly luscious, and the ornament lose its beauty and effect.

We shall now consider the nature of those objects from which comparisons should be drawn.

In the first place they must not be drawn from things which have too near and obvious a resemblance of the object with which they are compared. The pleasure we receive from the act of comparing, arises from the discovery of likenesses among things of different species, where we should not at first sight expect a resemblance.

But, in the second place, as comparisons ought not to be founded on likenesses too obvious, much less ought they to be founded on those which are too faint and distant. These, instead of assisting, strain the fancy to comprehend them, and throw no light upon the subject.

In the third place, the object from which a comparison is drawn ought never to be an unknown object, nor one of which few people can have a clear idea. Therefore similes, founded on philosophical discoveries, or on any thing with which persons of a particular trade only, or a particular profession, are acquainted, produce not their proper effect. They should be drawn from those illustrious and noted objects which most readers have either seen, or can strongly conceive.

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In the fourth place, in compositions of a serious or elevated kind, similes should never be drawn from low or mean objects. These degrade and vilify; whereas similes are generally intended to embellish and dignify. Therefore, except in burlesque writings, or where an object is meant to be degraded, mean ideas should never be presented.

ANTITHESIS is founded on the contrast or opposition of two objects. By contrast, objects opposed to each other appear in a stronger light. Beauty, for instance, never appears so charming as when contrasted with ugliness. Antithesis, therefore, may on ma. ny occasions be used advantageously to strengthen the impression which we propose that any object should make. Thus Cicero, in his oration for Milo, repre senting the improbability of Milo's designing to take away the life of Clodius, when every thing was unfavorable to such design,after he had omitted many oppor tunities of effecting such a purpose, heightens our conviction of this improbability by a skilful use of this figure."Quem igitur cum omnium gratia interficere noluit, hunc voluit cum aliquorum querela? Quem jure, quem loco, quem tempore, quem impune, non est ausus; hunc injuria, iniquo loco, alieno tempore, periculo capitis, non dubitavit occidere?" Here the antithesis is rendered complete, by the words and members of the sentence, expressing the contrasted objects, being similarly constructed, and made to correspond with each other.

We must, however, acknowledge that frequent use