ON THE FIGURES OF SPEECH.

The word figure applies literally to the shape of a piece of matter; and, as all pieces of matter agree or disagree in shape, according to the manner in which their particles are combined and collocated one with the other, the term figure has been appropriated to signify that peculiar, as distinguished from the ordinary shape or mode in which words are arranged to express ideas. "Her eyes were exceedingly bright," expresses an ordinary idea in ordinary every-day language. The same fact is conveyed by the following language: "Her eyes were two stars shining in the dead of night." These two expressions, though conveying the same idea, differ from each other as one particle of matter differs, in form, from another. The first is common-place, the last figurative language—that is, language consisting of words so put together as to present a shape or form different from that of the ordinary words.

Figurative language is the language of nature; ordinary language is the language of art. The precepts of philosophy and the teaching of poetry were of old delivered in the language of figure. Our Saviour taught through the medium of parables, a species of figure; and "without a parable," says the Evangelist, "spake He not unto them."

The languages of the East abound in figures; this would naturally follow from the fact, that figurative language would be the language first spoken; men in the earlier ages, and perhaps the ruder, from a want of copious vocabularies, having been obliged to use expressions of a figurative character, presented to them through the medium of the senses, for those more ordinary ones substituted by the moderns, whose imagination too, being less ardent, would lead them to the use of the latter.

The use of figures is attended with considerable danger of blunders; and the necessity of a correspondence in all the parts of figures, especially those resulting from resemblance between the thing represented and the thing made use of as the medium of representation, is such as to lay the writer or speaker, if he would not render himself

ridiculous, under a continual obligation to be on his guard against inaccuracies in thought and expression.

The figures of speech, which originate in a resemblance between two things, are-Metaphor, Simile, and Allegory. The Metaphor, a very commonly used figure, compares one thing with another, or rather conveys an idea by distorting the ordinary application of the word. Shepherd, for instance, is the name of a person who takes care of, and feeds sheep; the helplessness and innocence of sheep naturally create in the shepherd a strong affection for them, which is exhibited in the great care he takes in providing for their wants. From the similarity in kind, though not degree, between such care and that exhibited by the Creator towards his creatures, he is sometimes called, in the language of figure, a shepherd. Thus-"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want;" "The Lord is my shield;" "The Lord God is a sun and shield;" "Man puts forth in youth the tender buds of hope,”—are examples of this figure.

The Simile also expresses a likeness between two things, but in a manner different from that whereby metaphor expresses it. Milton describes the shield of Satan, and likens it to

"The moon, whose orb

Through optic-glass the Tuscan artist views,
At evening, from the top of Fesole."

This is an example of the simile; which differs from the metaphor, in that the facts asserted in simile are perfectly true; whereas, of those asserted in metaphor, only one is literally true. The metaphor asserts that one individual has the characteristics of the other to which it is compared. Thus, God is called a shield: this is not true literally. The simile asserts that one object resembles another, as in the foregoing, wherein Satan's shield is said to be like the moon in form; this may be true. In the sentence, "Man puts forth in youth the tender buds of hope;" Man is the primary object, and is said to do what the secondary object, a tree, to which he is compared, does. The distinction, therefore, between metaphor and simile, may be thus briefly stated: Metaphor compares things by asserting of one what belongs only to another; Simile, by asserting what is

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true of both. The distinction, however, is in many instances a distinction without a difference.

Allegory is most frequently considered as a species of metaphor, differing in no degree therefrom, except in the length thereof. There is one essential difference, however, between the metaphor and allegory, which is thisthat whereas metaphor presents to view the two things compared, the allegory presents only one, and that the secondary object. Thus, in the 80th Psalm, we have a most beautiful instance of the allegory, wherein the Israelites, without being ever spoken of, or presented literally to our view, are likened to a vine.

The heathen mythology is all an allegory; and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" is considered as one of the finest (if not the finest) allegories in the English language.

The other figures of speech most ordinarily used, and therefore of most importance, are-Irony, Hyperbole, Interrogation, Climax.-Irony is resorted to when a sense is intended to be expressed different from that which the words made use of would literally convey; there is no possibility, however, of mistaking the sense intended, as the circumstances of each case are sufficient to indicate what is really meant. Irony is a most powerful engine in the hands of a subtle disputer, who would bring home conviction of error to the mind of an opponent. Of this there is a notable example in the address of Elijah to the Prophets of Baal, intended to convince them of the incapability of their God to hear and assist them:-" Cry aloud, for he is a God; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked."

Hyperbole is the language of exaggeration; it represents things in a degree greater or less than the truth would literally admit of; the party using it, however, does not intend to deceive, and resorts to it by way of more strongly assuring. When a man represents a person as being stronger than a lion, he uses a hyperbole, and is said to speak hyperbolically; so also the opposite-"As weak as a cat." The language, in which Moses represents God as promising a numerous posterity to the Patriarchs, is the language of hyperbole, by which they were likened

to the stars of heaven and the grains of sand on the sea-shore.

Interrogation. Of this there are two kinds: one belonging to grammar, implying doubt or ignorance on the part of the questioner; the other to rhetoric, implying the strongest conviction on the part of the speaker, who exhibits his confidence in the truth of what he asserts by challenging investigation; thus the Angel to Abraham"Is anything too hard for the Lord ?"

Climax is a figure by which the attention is fixed on a series of things rising every one above the preceding in importance. Of this there is a beautiful specimen in the language in which the messenger announced to the aged Eli the defeat of the Israelites by the Philistines: "And the messenger answered and said, Israel is fled before the Philistines; and there hath been also a great slaughter among the people; and thy two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead; and the ark of God is taken." So also St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans: "For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God."

Other figures of speech, of less importance, and not so striking in character as those already instanced, are― Metonymy, Euphemism, Synecdoche, Onomatopeia, Oxymoron, Periphrasis, and Usteron proteron.

By Metonymy, which implies a change of name, one word is substituted for another, when both are names for individuals so intimately related that the sense is readily understood. Thus: "All London (meaning the inhabitants) came down to see Greenwich fair; He is fond of the bottle" (meaning the contents thereof); "He is reading Virgil," i.e. his works.

The Euphemism is a figure whereby what is disagreeable is softened by expression, so as not to suggest the idea in all its harshness. Thus-"A man is not," for, "A man is dead;" "He breathed his last;" "He fell asleep," as is said of Stephen in the Acts of the Apostles, are examples of this figure, which the Latins and Greeks carried so far as to give names to things implying a property in them

10. An adverb of place frequently stands in the position of the relative: thus-"He now entered the chamber, where he found the letter"=" in which."

11. In the introductory remarks on Syntax, it was laid down that the relative should follow its antecedent as closely as possible. Of this principle the following will serve as an illustration: -"Philip, the father of Alexander, who founded the Macedonian Empire." Here it is impossible to discover grammatically which noun-Alexander or Philip -is the antecedent to who. Latham defends such phraseology, by supposing such an expression as "Philip, the father of Alexander," a single many-worded name, serving as the antecedent of who. To this defence it may be objected, Who is to determine when the writer intends such an expression to be so understood? There are many ways of avoiding such obscurities-"Philip, who was the father of Alexander, and who founded the Macedonian Empire," will serve as a specimen.

12. The words that ask and answer a question should be in the same case. As

(i.) Who is there ?-I (not me).

(i) Whom do you seek?-Him (not he).

(i) Whose book is this?-His (not he or him).

v) Who do men say that I am?—He (not him). Nors-The answers to the foregoing questions are supplied by pronouns, in order that the case of the answering word may the more easily be discerned; the same principle guides as to the case of the noun used to answer a ques

1S. "Somebody. I don't know who told me." In such EXPANSION, BÀo, not whom, is correct. Whom must not be used as though it were the object of the transitive verb

ove the object of this verb is understood; and the senfences when fully expressed, would read thus:—“Somebody, I dont know the person who tvid me, told me.” Or me euphoniously — “Somebody told me; I don't know Brac core who sold me.

to threatened death to whoever would oppose More the word governed by the preposition to is Rod, and woven, is relative, is the nominative to the teva avmedy this armua is a strong one, and used