Again :

Helas! l'amour m'a pris,

Comme le chat fait la fouris.
A vulgar Irish ballad begins thus:
I have as much love in store

As there's apples in Portinore.

Where the fubject is burlesque or ludicrous, fuch fimiles are far from being improper. Horace ays pleafantly,

Quanqum tu levior cortice.

And Shakespear,

L. 3 ode 9.

In breaking oaths he's ftronger than Hercules.

And this leads me to observe, that befide the foregoing comparisons, which are all ferious, there is a spe cies, the end and purpose of which is to excite gaiety or mirth. Take the following examples.

Falstaff, fpeaking to his page:

I do here walk before thee, like a fow that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one.

Second part, Henry IV. að 1. fc. 4. I think he is not a pick purse, nor a horse stealer; but for his verity in love, I do think him as concave as a cover'd goblet, or a worm-eaten nut.

As you like it, act 3. fc. 10.

This fword a dagger had his page,
That was but little for his age;
And therefore waited on him fo,
As dwarfs upon knights-errrant do.

Defcription of Hudibras's horfe:

Hudibras canto 1.

He was well tay'd, and in his gait
Preferv'd a grave, majestic state.
At fpur or fwitch no more he skipt,
Or mended pace, than Spaniard whipt:
And yet fo fiery, he would bound
As if he griev'd to touch the ground:
That Cæfar's horfe, who, as fame goes,
Had corns upon his feet and toes,
Was not by half so tender hooft,

Nor

Nor trod upon the ground fo foft.
And as that beaft would kneel and stoop,
(Some write, to take his rider up);
So Hudibras his ('tis well known)
Would often do to fet him down.

Canto 1.

Canto 1.

Honour is, like a widow, won With brisk attempt and putting on, With entering manfully, and urging; Not flow approaches, like a virgin. The fun had long fince in the lap Of Thetis taken out his nap; And, like a lobster boil'd, the morn From black to red began to turn. Books, like men, their authors, have but one way of coming into the world; but there are ten thousand to go out of it, and return no more. Tale of a Tub.

Part 2. canto 2.

And in this the world may perceive the difference between the integrity of a generous author, and that of a common friend. The latter is obferved to adhere close in profperity, but on the decline of fortune, to drop fuddenly off: whereas the generous author, just on the contrary, finds his hero on the dunghill, from thence by gradual fteps raises him to a throne, and then immedi ately withdraws, expecting not fo much as thanks for his pains. Tale of a Tub.

The most accomplish'd way of ufing books at prefent is, to ferve them as fome do lords, learn their titles, and then brag of their acquaintance. Tale of a Tub. Box'd in a chair, the beau impatient fits, While fpouts run clatt'ring o'er the roof by fits; And ever and anon with frightful din

The leather founds; he trembles from within.
So when Troy chairmen bore the wooden steed,
Pregnant with Greeks, impatient to be freed,
(Thofe bully Greeks, who, as the moderns do,
Inttead of paying chairmen run them through),
Laocoon ftruck the outfide with his fpear,
And each imprifon'd hero quak'd for fear,

Defcription of a city-shower. Swift.

Clubs,

Clubs, diamonds, hearts, in wild diforder feen,
With throngs promifcuous ftrow the level green.
Thus when difpers'd a routed army runs,
Of Afia's troops, and Afric's fable fons,
With like confufion, different nations fly,
Of various habit, and of various dye,
The pierc'd battalions difunited, fall
In heaps on heaps; one fate o'erwhelms them all.
Rape of the Lock, canto 3.
He does not confider, that fincerity in love is as much
out of fashion as fweet fnuff; no body takes it now.
Careless bufband.

Lady Eafy. My dear, I am afraid you have provoked her a little too far.

Sir Charles. O! Not at all. You shall fee, I'll sweeten her, and fhe'll cool like a dish of tea.

CHA P. XX.

Τ'

FIGURES.

Ibid.

HE reader will not find here a complete lift of the different tropes and figures that have been carefully noted by antient critics and grammarians; a lift fwelled to fuch a fize by containing every unusual expreffion, as to make it difficult to diftinguifh many of their tropes and figures from plain language. I little imagined that much could be made of tropes and figures in the way of rational criticifin; till difcovering by a fort of accident, that many of them depend on principles formerly explained, I gladly embraced an opportunity to fhow the influence of thete principles where it would be the leaft expected Conf.ing myfelf therefore to fuch figures, I am luckily freed from much trash; without dropping, fo far as I remember, anv trope or figure that merits a proper name. And I begin with Profopopia or perfonification, which is july intitled to the first place.

SECT. I.

PERSONIFICATION.

HE beftowing fenfibility and voluntary motion

Tupon is to buis a figure, as to

require, one fhould imagine, very peculiar circumitances for operating the delufion: and yet, in the language

of

Ch. XX. of poetry, we find variety of expreflions, which, though commonly reduced to that figure, are used without ceremony, or any fort of preparation; as, for example, thirfy ground, bungry church yard, furious dart, angry ocean. Thefe epithets, in their proper meaning, are attributes of fenfible beings: what is their meaning, when apply'd to things inanimate? do they make us conceive the ground, the church-yard, the dart, the ocean, to be endued with animal functions? This is a curious inquiry; and whether fo or not, it cannot be declined in handling the prefent subject.

The mind agitated by certain paffion, is prone to beftow fenfibility upon things inanimate. This is an additional inftance of the influence of paffion upon our opinions and belief t. I give fome examples. Antony, mourning over the body of Cæfar, murdered in the fenate-house, vents his paflion in the following words.

Antony. O pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, That I am meek and gentle with these butchers. Thou art the ruins of the nobleft man That ever lived in the tide of times.

Julius Cæfar, að 3. Sc. 4i Here Antony muft have been impreffed with fome fort of notion, that the body of Cæfar was liftening to him, without which the fpeech would be foolish and abfurd. Nor will it appear ftrange, after what is faid in the chapter above cited, that paffion should have fuch power over the mind of man. In another example of the fame kind, the earth, as a common mother, is animated to give refuge against a father's unkindness:

C

Almeria. O Earth, behold, I kneel upon thy bosom, And bend my flowing eyes to ftream upon Thy face, imploring thee that thou wilt yield, Open thy bowels of compaffion, take

Into thy womb the laft and most forlorn

Of all thy race. Hear me, thou common parent;
I have no parent elfe.- Be thou a mother,

And ftep between me and the curfe of him,
who was, but is no more a father;

Who was

But

* Page 204.

+ Chap. 2. part 5.

But brands my innocence with horrid crimes;
And for the tender names of child and daughter,
Now calls me murderer and parricide.

Mourning Bride, act 4. sc. 7. Plaintive paffions are extremely follicitous for vent; and a foliloquy commonly answers the purpose: but when fuch a paffion becomes exceffive, it cannot be gratified but by fympathy from others; and if denied that confolation in a natural way, it will convert even things inanimate into fympathifing beings. Thus Philoctetes complains to the rocks and promontories of the ifle of Lemnos*; and Alceftes dying, invokes the fun, the light of day, the clouds, the earth, her husband's palace, &c. t. Mofchus, lamenting the death of Bion, conceives, that the birds, the fountains, the trees, lament with him: the shepherd, who in Virgil bewails the death of Daphnis, expreffeth himself thus:

Daphni, tuum Pœnos etiam ingemuiffe leones
Interitum, montefque feri fylvæque loquuntur.

Again:

Eclogue v. 27.

Illum etiam lauri, illum etiam flevere myricæ.
Pinifer illum etiam fola fub rupe jacentem
Mænalus, et gelidi fleverunt faxa Lycæi.

Ho visto al pianto mio

Refponder per pietate i faffi e l'onde;

E fofpirar le fronde

Ho visto al pianto mio.

Ma non ho visto mai,
Ne fpero di videre

Compaffion ne la crudele, e bella.

Eclogue x. 13.

Aminta di Tafo, aŭt 1. fc. 2: That fuch perfonification is derived from nature, will not admit the leaft remaining doubt, after finding it in poems of the darkest ages and remoteft countries. No VOL. II.

G

*Philoctetes of Sophocles, act 4, sc. 2.
Alceftes of Euripides, act a. fc. 1.

figure