Q. What is the last?

A. Do not let them be carried too far. Q. What is a good rule for examining the propriety of Metaphors ?

A. Form a picture of them, and see what figure they present when delineated with a pencil.*

Q. What is an Allegory?

A. A continued Metaphor.†

"As glorious

As is a winged messenger from heaven,
Unto the white upturned wondering eyes
Of mortals, that fall back to gaze on him,
When he bestrides the lazy pacing clouds,
And sails upon the bosom of the air."

Here the angel is represented, as, at one moment, bestriding the clouds, and sailing upon the air, and upon the bosom of the air too; which forms such a confused picture, that it is impossible for any imagination to comprehend it.

"I bridle in my struggling muse with pain,

That longs to launch into a bolder strain !"

The muse, figured as a horse may be bridled; but when we speak of launching, we make it a ship; and, by no force of imagination, can it be supposed both a a horse and a ship at one moment; bridled, to hinder it from launching.

+ Thus, in Prior's Henry and Emma: Emma, in the following allegorical manner, describes her constancy to Henry:

"Did I but purpose to embark with thee

On the smooth surface of a summer's sea,
While gentle zephyrs play with prosperous gales,
And fortune's favour fills the swelling sails;

Q. What rules are to be observed in the conduct of Allegories?

A. The same as were given for Metaphors, on account of the affinity they bear to each other.

Q. Were. the Ancients fond of delivering instruction by Allegories?

A. Yes. Their Fables or Parables, are no other than Allegories.

Q. What is an Ænigma or Riddle?

A. One thing represented by another; but purposely wrapt up under so many circumstances, as to be rendered obscure.

HYPERBOLE-PERSONIFICATION-
APOSTROPHE.

Q. In what does Hyperbole consist? A. In magnifying an object beyond its natural bounds.

Q. How many kinds of Hyperboles are there ?

A. Two; such as are employed in description, and such as are suggested by the warmth of passion.

Q. Which are the best?

A. The latter, by far; for passion excuses

But would forsake the ship and make the shore, When the winds whistle, and the tempests roar ?”

daring figures, and often renders them natural and just.*

Q. What must govern the use of this figure? A. Good sense and just taste.t

Q. What writers most abuse this Figure? A. The Epigrammatic. They often rest the whole merit of their epigrams on some extravagant hyperbolical turn.

Q. What is Personification?

A. That figure by which we attribute life and action to inanimate objects.

Q. Is there a strong tendency in the human mind to the use of this figure?

A. Yes; and it is probably one of the sources of Pagan Theology.

Q. How many different degrees of this figure are there?

A. Three.

The first and lowest is, when

The following sentiments of Satan, in Milton, powerfully exhibit the picture of a mind agitated with rage and despair :

"Me, miserable! which way shall I fly
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 following picture is disgusting:

"I found her on the floor

In all the storm of grief, yet beautiful;
Pouring forth tears at such a lavish rate,

That were the world on fire, they might have drown'd
The wrath of Heaven, and quench'd the mighty ruin."

LEE.

some of the properties of living creatures are ascribed to inanimate objects; as, a raging storm, a deceitful disease: The second, when those inanimate objects are introduced as acting like such as have life :* The third, when they are represented as speaking to us, or as listening to what we say to them.†

Q. In the management of this last, (which is the highest sort of personification,) what rules are to be observed?

A. Never attempt nor continue it, unless prompted by strong passion; and never

*No personification, in any author, is more striking, or introduced on a more proper occasion, than the following of Milton's, on Eve's eating the forbidden fruit:

"So saying, her rash hand, in evil hour,

Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck'd, she ate; Earth felt the wound: and nature from her seat, Sighing through all her works, gave signs of wo, That all was lost."

+"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 hop'd 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 ev'n, which I bred up with tender hand,
From your first op'ning buds, and gave you names!
Who now shall rear you to the sun, or rank

Your tribes, and water from th' ambrosial fount ?"

personify any object, in this way, but such as has some dignity in itself.*

Q. What is the Apostrophe?

A. An address to a real person who is either absent or dead, as if he were present, or listening to us.

Q Where does this figure most abound? A. In the poems of Ossian, and in the writings of the Prophets.t

* Addressing the several parts of one's body as if they were animated, is not congruous to the dignity of passion. For this reason, the following passage, in a very beautiful poem of Mr. Pope's Eloisa to Abelard, must be condemned.

"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;
Oh! write it not, my hand!-his name appears
Already written:-Blot it out, my tears!"

"Weep on the rocks of roaring winds, O maid of Inistore! Bend thy fair head over the waves thou fairer than the ghosts of the hills when it moves in a sunbeam at noon over the silence of Morven! He is fallen! Thy youth is low; pale beneath the sword of Cuthullin !" OSSIAN.

"O thou sword of the Lord! how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put thyself up into the scabbard, rest and be still! How can it be quiet, seeing the Lord hath given it a charge against Ashkelon, and against the sea-shore? There he hath appointed it.”—Jer. xlvii. 6, 7,