Of Poetical gence from necessity, and obtained it, the English, those Words. of them especially who write in rhyme, may claim it with better reason; as the words of their language are less musical and far less susceptible of variety in arrangement and syntax. cap 3. and solemn. Secondly, Such poetical words as are known to be ancient have something venerable in their appearance, and impart a solemnity to all around them. This remark is from Quintilian; who adds, that they give to a composition that cast and colour of antiquity which in painting is so highly valued, but which art can never * Lib. viii. effectually imitate *. Poetical words that are either not ancient, or not known to be such, have, however, a pleasing effect from association. We are accustomed to meet with them in sublime and elegant writing; and nence they come to acquire sublimity and elegance: Even as the words we hear on familiar occasions come to be accounted familiar; and as those that take their rise among pick pockets, gamblers, and gypsies, are thought too indelicate to be used by any person of taste or good manners. When one hears the following lines, which abound in poetical words, The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed: —one is as sensible of the dignity of the language, as one would be of the vileness or vulgarity of that man's speech, who should prove his acquaintance with Bridewell, by interlarding his discourse with such terms as + See the milldoll, queer cull, or nobbing cheat; or who, in imiScoundrel's tation of fops and gamblers, should on the common occa Diction ary. market. sions of life, talk of being beat hollow, or saving his di+ Language stance . What gives dignity to persons gives dignity of New- to language. A man of this character is one who has borne important employments, been connected with honourable associates, and never degraded himself by levity or immorality of conduct. Dignified phrases are those which have been used to express elevated sentiments, have always made their appearance in elegant composition, and have never been profaned by giving permanency or utterance to the passions of the vile, the giddy, or the worthless. And as by an active old age, the dignity of such men is confirmed and heightened; so the dignity of such words, if they be not suffered to fall into disuse, seldom fails to improve by length of time. 53 Tropes and figures ne cessary to poetical Art. II. Of TROPES and FIGures. If it appear that, by means of figures, language may be made more pleasing and more natural than it would be without them; it will follow, that to poetic language, language, whose end is to please by imitating nature, figures must be not only ornamental, but necessary. It will here be proper, therefore, first to point out the importance and utility of figurative language; secondly, to show, that figures are more necessary to poetry in general than to any other mode of writing. I. As to the importance and utility of figurative expression, in making language more pleasing and more natural; it may be remarked, (1.) That tropes and figures are often necessary to supply the unavoidable defects of language. When proper words are wanting, or not recollected, or when we do not choose to be always repeating them, we must and 52 have recourse to tropes and figures. When philosophers of Trager began to explain the operations of the mind, they found Pad that most of the words in common use, being framed to Figures answer the more obvious exigencies of life, were in their proper signification applicable to matter only and its to qualities. What was to be done in this case? Would the defects they think of making a new language to express the of simple qualities of mind? No: that would have been difficult language, or impracticable; and granting it both practicable and easy, they must have foreseen, that nobody would read or listen to what was thus spoken or written in a new and consequently in an unknown tongue. They therefore took the language as they found it; and whereever they thought there was a similarity and analogy between the qualities of the mind and the qualities of matter, scrupled not to use the names of the material qualities tropically, by applying them to the mental qualities. Hence came the phrases solidity of judgment, warmth of imagination, enlargement of understanding, and many others; which, though figurative, express the meaning just as well as proper words would have done. In fact, numerous as the words in every language are, they must always fall short of the unbounded variety of human thoughts and perceptions. Tastes and smells are almost as numerous as the species of bodies. Sounds admit of perceptible varieties that surpass all computation, and the seven primary colours may be diversified without end. If each variety of external perception were to have a name, language would be insurmountably difficult; nay, if men were to appropriate a class of names to each particular sense, they would multiply words exceedingly, without adding any thing to the clearness of speech. Those words, therefore, that in their proper signification denote the objects of one sense, we often apply tropically to the objects of another, and say, Sweet taste, sweet smell, sweet sound; sharp point, sharp taste, sharp sound; harmony of sounds, harmony of colours, harmony of parts; soft silk, soft colour, soft sound, soft temper; and so in a thousand instances: and yet these words, in their tropical signification, are not less intelligible than in their proper one; for sharp taste and sharp sound, are as expressive as sharp sword; and barmony of tones is not better understood by the musician, than harmony of parts by the architect, and harmony of colours by the painter. Savages, illiterate persons, and children, have comparatively but few words in proportion to the things they may have occasion to speak of; and must therefore recur to tropes and figures more frequently than persons of copious elocution. A seamen, or mechanic, even when he talks of that which does not belong to his art, borrows his language from that which does; and this makes his diction figurative to a degree that is sometimes entertaining erough. "Death (says a seaman in one of Smollet's novels) has not yet boarded my comrade; but they have been yard-arm and yard-arm these three glasses. His starboard eye is open, but fast jammed in his head; and the haulyards of his under jaw have given way." given way." These phrases are exaggerated; but we allow them to be natural, because we know that illiterate people are apt to make use of tropes and figures taken from their own trade, even when they speak of things that are very remote and incongruous. In those poems, therefore, that imitate the conversation of illiterate persons, as in comedy, farce, and pastoral, such figures ju diciously Of Tropes diciously applied may render the imitation more pleasing, because more exact and natural. and Figures 53 to avoid diction Words that are untuneable and harsh, the poet is of ten obliged to avoid, when perhaps he has no other way to express their meaning than by tropes and figures; harshness of and sometimes the measure of his verse may oblige him to reject a proper word that is not harsh, merely on account of its being too long, or too short, or in any other way unsuitable to the rhythm, or to the rhyme. And hence another use of figurative language, that it contributes to poetical harmony. Thus to press the plain, is frequently used to signify to be slain in battle; liquid plain is put for ocean, blue serene for sky, and sylvan reign for country life. 54 Tropes and figures favourable to (2.) Tropes and figures are favourable to delicacy. When the proper name of a thing is in any respect undelicacy; pleasant, a well chosen trope will convey the idea in such a way as to give no offence. This is agreeable, and even necessary, in polite conversation, and cannot be dispensed with in elegant writing of any kind. Many words, from their being often applied to vulgar use, acquire a meanness that disqualifies them for a place in serious poetry; while perhaps, under the influence of a different system of manners, the corresponding words in another language may be elegant, or at least not vulgar. When one reads Homer in the Greek, one takes no offence at his calling Eumeus by a name which, literally rendered, signifies swine-herd; first, because the Greek word is well-sounding in itself; secondly, because we have never heard it pronounced in conversation, nor consequently debased by vulgar use; and, thirdly, because we know, that the office denoted by it was, in the age of Eumeus, both important and honourable. But Pope would have been blamed, if a name so indelicate as swineherd had in his translation been applied to so eminent a personage; and therefore he judiciously makes use of Odyssey, the trope synecdoche, and calls him swain *; a word both elegant and poetical, and not likely to lead the reader into any mistake about the person spoken of, as his employment had been described in a preceding passage. The same Eumeus is said, in the simple but melodious language of the original, to have been making his own shoes when Ulysses came to his door; a work which in those days the greatest heroes would often find necessary. This, too, the translator softens by a tropical expression : book xiv. ver. 41. Here sat Eumeus, and his cares applied, A hundred other examples might be quoted from this translation; but these will explain our meaning. There are other occasions on which the delicacy of figurative language is still more needful; as in Virgil's account of the effects of animal love, and of the plague among the beasts, in the third Georgic; where Dryden's style, by being less figurative than the original, is in one place exceedingly filthy, and in another shockingly ob scene. Hobbes could construe a Greek author; but his skill in words must have been all derived from the dictionary; for he seems not to have known that any one articulate sound could be more agreeable, or any one phrase more dignified than another. In his Iliad and Odyssey, even when he hits the author's sense (which is not always the case), he proves, by his choice of words, that of harmo 55 however, ny, elegance, or energy of style, he had no manner of Of Tropes conception. And hence that work, though called a and Translation of Homer, does not even deserve the name Figures. of poem, because it is in every respect unpleasing, being nothing more than a fictitious narrative delivered in a mean prose, with the additional meanness of harsh rhyme and untuneable measure.-Trapp understood Virgil well enough as a grammarian, and had a taste for his beauties: yet his translation bears no resemblance to Virgil; which is owing to the same cause, an imprudent choice of words and figures, and a total want of harmony. The delicacy we here contend for may, indeed, both which, in conversation and in writing, be carried too far. To call may be carkilling an innocent man in a duel an affair of honour, and lied too far. a violation of the rights of wedlock an affair of gallantry, is a prostitution of figurative language. Nor is it any credit to us, that we are said to have upwards of 40 figurative phrases to express excessive drinking. Language of this sort generally implies, that the public abhorrence of such crimes is not so strong as it ought to be and it is a question, whether even our morals might not be improved, if we were to call these and such like crimes by their proper names, murder, adultery, drunkenness, gluttony; names that not only express our meaning, but also betoken our disapprobation.-As to writing, it cannot be denied, that even Pope himself, in the excellent version just now quoted, has sometimes, for the sake of his numbers, or for fear of giving offence by too close an imitation of Homer's simplicity, employed tropes and figures too quaint or too solemn for the occasion. And the finical style is in part characterised by the writer's dislike to literal expressions, and affectedly substituting in their stead unnecessary tropes and figures. With these authors, a man's only child must always be his only hope; a country maid becomes a rural beauty, or perhaps a nymph of the groves; if flattery sing at all, it must be a syren song; the shepherd's flute dwindles into an oaten reed, and his crook is exalted into a sceptre; the silver lilies rise from their golden beds, and languish to the complaining gale. A young woman, though a good Christian, cannot make herself able without sacrificing to the Graces; nor hope to do any execution among the gentle swains, till a whole legion of Cupids, armed with flames and darts, and other weapons, begin to discharge from her eyes their formidable artillery. For the sake of variety, or of the verse, some of these figures may now and then find a place in a poem; but in prose, unless very sparingly used, they favour of affectation. agree 56 mote bre (3.) Tropes and figures promote brevity; and brevity, Tropes and united with perspicuity, is always agreeable. An ex- figures proample or two will be given in the next paragraph. Sen- vity, and timents thus delivered, and imagery, thus painted, are readily apprehended, by the mind, make a strong inpression upon the fancy, and remain long in the memory; whereas too many words, even when the meaning is good, never fail to bring disgust and weariness. They argue a debility of mind which hinders the author from seeing his thoughts in one distinct point of view; and they also encourage a suspicion, that there is something faulty or defective in the matter. In the poetic style, therefore, which is addressed to the fancy and passions, and intended to make a vivid, a pleasing, and a permanent impression, brevity, and consequently tropes and figures, are indispensable. And a language will always be and Of Tropes be the better suited to poetical purposes, the more it admits of this brevity;-a character which is more Figures. conspicuous in the Greek and Latin than in any modern tongue, and much less in the French than in the Italian or English. ང་ contribute to strength and energy of language. of soon awaking in the regions of light, to life and hap- of Trees Who would not sing for Lycidas! he knew The phrase, however, though bold, is emphatical; and (4) Tropes and figures contribute to strength or energy of language, not only by their conciseness, but also by conveying to the fancy ideas that are easily comprehended, and make a strong impression. We are powerfully affected with what we see, or feel, or hear. When a sentiment comes enforced or illustrated by figures taken from objects of sight, or touch, or hearing, one thinks, as it were, that one sees, or feels, or hears, the thing spoken of; and thus, what in itself would perhaps be obscure, or is merely intellectual, may be made to seize our attention and interest our passions almost as effectually as if it were an object of outward sense. When Virgil calls the Scipios thunderbolts of war, he very strongly expresses in one word, and by one image, the rapidity of their victories, the noise their achievements made in the world, and the ruin and consternation that attended their irresistible career.— -When Ho-poem.There are hundreds of tropical expressions in mer calls Ajax the bulwark of the Greeks, he paints with equal brevity his vast size and strength, the difficulty of prevailing against him, and the confidence wherewith his countrymen reposed on his valour.When Solomon says of the strange woman, or harlot, that her feet go down to death," he lets us know, not only that her path ends in destruction, but also, that they who accompany her will find it easy to go forwards to ruin, and difficult to return to their duty.-Satan's enormous magnitude, and refulgent appearance, his perpendicular ascent through a region of darkness, and the inconceivable rapidity of his motion, are all painted out to our fancy by Milton, in one very short similitude, Sprung upward, like-a pyramid of fire. Par. Lost, iv. 1C13. The paths of glory lead but to the grave: 5$ strong pas common use, incomparably more energetic than any pro- rally Part I. and Of Tropes rally breaks forth (for his indignation is just now raised to the very highest pitch) into the following violent Figures. exclamation against the crimes of mankind, in which almost every word is figurative. 59 The sim guage most Tremble, thou wretch, That hast within thee undivulged crimes King Lear. The vehemence of maternal love, and sorrow from the apprehension of losing her child, make the Lady Constance utter a language that is strongly figurative, though quite suitable to the condition and character of the speaker. The passage is too long for a quotation, but concludes thus: O Lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son, My life, my joy, my food, my all the world, My widow-comfort, and my sorrow's cure. King John. Similar to this, and equally expressive of conjugal love, is that beautiful hyperbole in Homer; where Andromache, to dissuade her husband from going out to the battle, tells him that she had now no mother, father or brethren, all her kindred being dead, and her native country desolate; and then tenderly adds, my But while Hector survives, I see As the passions that agitate the soul, and rouse the plest lan- fancy, are apt to vent themselves in tropes and figures, so those that depress the mind adopt for the most part a suitable to plain diction, without any ornament: for to a dejected depressing mind, wherein the imagination is generally inactive, it passions, is not probable that any great variety of ideas will present themselves; and when these are few and familiar, the words that express them must be simple. As no author equals Shakespeare in boldness or variety of figures when he copies the style of those violent passions that stimulate the fancy; so, when we would exhibit the hunan mind in a dejected state, no uninspired writer excels him in simplicity. The same Lear whose resentment had impaired his understanding, while it broke out in the most boisterous language, when, after some medical applications, he recovers his reason, rage being now exhausted, his pride humbled, and his spirits totally depressed, speaks in a style than which nothing can be imagined more simple or more affecting. Pray, do not mock me : his I am a very foolish, fond old man, Methinks I should know you, and know this man ; -Desdemona,ever gentle, artless, and sincere, shocked at the unkindness of her husband, and overcome with 2 melancholy, speaks in a style so beautifully simple, and Of Tropes so perfectly natural, that one knows not what to say commendation of it: My mother had a maid call'd Barbara; She was in love, and he she lov'd prov'd false, my in and Figures. tion. 60 Sometimes the imagination, even when exerted to the utmost, takes in but few ideas. This happens when the attention is totally engrossed by some very great object; admiration being one of those emotions that rather suspend the exercise of the faculties than push them into action. And here, too, the simplest language is the most natural; as when Milton says of the Deity, and to the that he sits high-throned above all height." And as sentiment this simplicity is more suitable to that one great exertion of admirawhich occupies the speaker's mind than a more elaborate imagery or language would have been, so has it also a more powerful effect in fixing and elevating the imagination of the hearer; for to introduce other thoughts for the sake of illustrating what cannot be illustrated, could answer no other purpose than to draw off the attention from the principal idea. In these and the like cases, the fancy left to itself will have more satisfaction in pursuing at leisure its own speculations that in attending to those of others; as they who see for the first time some admirable object would choose rather to feast upon it in silence, than to have their thoughts interrupted by a long description from another person, informing them of nothing but what they see before them, are already acquainted with, or may easily conceive. It was remarked above that the hyperbole, prosopopeia, and apostrophe, are among the most passionate figures. This deserves illustration. 61 love, fear, Ist, A very angry man is apt to think the injury he Hyperbole has just received greater than it really is; and if he natural to proceed immediately to retaliate by word or deed, seldom the passion fails to exceed the due bounds, and to become injurious of anger in his turn. The fond parent looks upon his child as a &c. prodigy of genius and beauty; and the romantic lover will not be persuaded that his mistress has nothing supernatural either in her mind or person. Fear, in like manner, not only magnifies its object when real, but even forms an object out of nothing, and mistakes the fictions of fancy for the intimations of sense.-No wonder, then, that they who speak according to the impulse of passion should speak hyperbolically; that the angry man should exaggerate the injury he has received, and the vengeance he is going to inflict; that the sorrowful should magnify what they have lost, and the joyful what they have obtained; that the lover should speak extravagantly of the beauty of his mistress, the coward of the dangers he has encountered, and the credulous clown of the miracles performed by the juggler. In fact, these people would not do justice to what they feel if they did not say more than the truth. The valiant man, on the other hand, as naturally adopts the diminishing hyperbole when he speaks of danger; and the man of sense, when he is obliged to mention his own virtue or ability; because it appears to him, or he is willing to consider and Of Tropes consider it, as less than the truth, or at best as inconsiderable. Contempt uses the same figure; and thereFigures. fore Petruchio, affecting that passion, affects also the language of it: Thou liest, thou thread, thou thimble, Taming of the Shrew, act iv. sc. 1. For some passions consider their objects as important and others as unimportant. Of the former sort are anger, love, fear, admiration, joy, sorrow, pride; of the latter are contempt and courage. Those may be said to subdue the mind to the object, and these to subdue the object to the mind. And the former, when violent, always magnify their objects: whence the hyperbole called amplification, or auxesis: and the latter as constantly diminish theirs; and give rise to the hyperbole called meiosis, or diminution.-Even when the mind cannot be said to be under the influence of any violent passion, we naturally employ the same figure when we would impress another very strongly with any idea. "He is a walking shadow: he is worn to skin and bone: be has one foot in the grave and the other following :". these, and the like phrases, are proved to be natural by their frequency. By introducing great ideas, the hyperbole is further useful in poetry as a source of the sublime; but when employed injudiciously is very apt to become ridiculous. Cowley makes Goliah as big as Davideis, the hill down which he was marching*; and tells us, book iii. that when he came into the valley he seemed to fill it, and to overtop the neighbouring mountains (which, by the by, seems rather to lessen the mountains and valleys than to magnify the giant): nay, he adds that the sun started back when he saw the splendour of his arms. This poet seems to have thought that the figure in question could never be sufficiently enormous; but Quintilian would have taught him, "Quamvis omnis hyperbole ultra fidem, non tamen esse debet ultra modum." The reason is, that this figure, when excessive, betokens rather absolute infatuation than intense emotion; and resembles the efforts of a ranting tragedian, or the ravings of an enthusiastic declaimer, who, by putting on the gestures and looks of a lunatic, satisfy the discerning part of their audience, that, instead of feeling strongly, they have no rational feelings at all. In the wildest energies of nature there is a modesty which the imitative artist will be careful never to overstep. 62 proper. Prosopo2dly, That figure, by which things are spoken of as pacia, when if they were persons, is called prosopopcia, or personification. It is a bold figure, and yet is often natural. Long acquaintance recommends to some share in our affection even things inanimate, as a house, a tree, a rock, a mountain, a country; and were we to leave such a thing without hope of return, we should be inclined to address it with a farewel, as if it were a percipient creature. Hence it was that Mary queen of Scotland, when on her return to her own kingdom, so affectionately bade adieu to the country which she had left. "Farewel France," said she, "farewel, beloved country, which I shall never more behold!" Nay, we find that ignorant nations have actually worshipped such things, or considered them as the haunt of certain powerful beings. Dryads and 1 and hamadryads were by the Greeks and Romans supposed of Tropes to preside over trees and groves; river gods and nymphs, over streams and fountains; little deities, called Lares Figures and Penates, were believed to be the guardians of hearths and houses. In Scotland there is hardly a hill remarkable for the beauty of its shape, that was not in former times thought to be the habitation of fairies. Nay, modern as well as ancient superstition has appropriated the waters to a peculiar sort of demon or goblin, and peoples the very regions of death, the tombs and charnel houses, with multitudes of ghosts and phantoms.-Besides when things inanimate make a strong impression upon us, whether agreeable or otherwise, we are apt to address them in terms of affection or dislike. The sailor blesses the plank that brought him ashore from the shipwreck; and the passionate man, and sometimes even the philosopher, will say bitter words to the stumbling block that gave him a fall.-Moreover, a man agitated with an interesting passion, especially of long continuance, is apt to fancy that all nature sympathises with him. If he has lost a beloved friend, he thinks the sun less bright than at other times; and in the sighing of the winds and groves, in the lowings of the herd, and in the murmurs of the stream, he seems to hear the voice of lamentation. But when joy or hope predominate, the whole world assumes a gay appearance. In the contemplation of every part of nature, of every condition of mankind, of every form of human society, the benevolent and the pious man, the morose and the cheerful, the miser and the misanthrope, finds occasion to indulge his favourite passion, and sees or thinks he sees, his own temper reflected back in the actions, sympathies, and tendencies of other things and persons. Our affections are indeed the medium through which we may he said to survey ourselves, and every thing else; and whatever be our inward frame, we are apt to perceive a wonderful congeniality in the world without us. And hence the fancy, when roused by real emotions, or by the pathos of composition, is easily reconciled to those figures of speech that ascribe sympathy, perception, and the other attributes of animal life, to things inanimate, or even to notions merely intellectual. -Motion, too, bears a close affinity to action, and affects our imagination nearly in the same manner; and we see a great part of nature in motion, and by its sensible effects are led to contemplate energies innumerable. These conduct the rational mind to the Great First Cause; and these, in times of ignorance, disposed the vulgar to believe in a variety of subordinate agents employed in producing those appearances that could not otherwise be accounted for. Hence an endless train of fabulous deities, and of witches, demons, fairies, genii; which, if they prove our reason weak, and our fancy strong, prove also that personification is natural to the human mind; and that a right use of this figure may have a powerful effect, in fabulous writing especially, to engage our sympathy in behalf of things as well as persons; for nothing can give lasting delight to a moral being, but that which awakens sympathy, and touches the heart; and though it be true that we sympathise in some degree even with inanimate things, yet what has, or is supposed to have, life, calls forth a more sincere and more permanent fellow-feeling.-Let it be observed further, that to awaken our sympathetic feelings, a lively conception of their object is necessary. This indeed is true of almost all our emotions; their keenness is in pro portion |