This is perhaps the most admired stroke of eloquence, that ever was uttered by this first of hu-man orators. It exhibits a grandeur and generosity of sentiment, to which the heart of every virtuous man, through all the lapse of ages, must yield assent. But the peculiar power of the figure, with which it was associated, consisted in its application to the feelings of those, to whom it was addressed.

The principle, which requires that the figure should be adapted to the understanding of the audience, is applicable principally to extemporaneous discourse before popular assemblies. In such cases imagery should seldom be drawn from objects of science, or of nature, remote from the knowledge of the auditory. Generally speaking the figure will be forcible in proportion to its novelty, combined with the familiarity of the source, from which it is derived, to the mind of the hearer.

Other rules for the management of figures might be added; but as this branch of the science enters into another department of your studies, I shall not enlarge upon them here. For the purposes of oratory, and so far as figurative language is employed in that art, the most important rules will be found included in the two, which have formed the subject of this lecture and the preced

ing one; in the rule of unity, which will make every image consistent with itself; and in the rule of congruity, which will make it suitable to the subject, to the sentiments of the speaker, and to the feelings and understanding of the hearer. From these observations upon the subject of figurative language in general we shall next pass to the consideration of some particular figures, which from their importance are entitled to more special notice than the rest.

LECTURE XXXIII.

FIGURES. METAPHOR. ALLEGORY.

My last three lectures have presented you some considerations on the subject of figurative language in general; a subject, which has been so much exhausted by all the rhetorical writers ancient and modern, that it was impossible for me to say any thing, which had not often been said before. I have therefore contented myself with presenting it to you in a light somewhat different from that, in which it is exhibited by the writers, with whom I suppose you to be familiarly acquainted; and with endeavouring to mark out more distinctly, than they have done, the bounda ries between the language of the reasoning faculty, and that of the imagination and the passions. In descending to the examination of particular figures,

and the discrimination between those, which have obtained names for themselves, it were still in vain for me to attempt to entertain you with any novelty either of sentiment or of theory. As however it has been made my duty to notice the most distinguished among these modifications of speech, I shall devote this and the succeeding lecture to them; referring you to the ordinary writers on the subject of belles-lettres for those particulars, which it would be useless for me to repeat.

The general definition or character of a trope, you will remember, is a word, employed in a sense different from that of its proper meaning. As the great object of all human language is the communication of ideas from the mind of the speaker to the mind of the hearer, it is obvious that, for the attainment of this purpose, the articulate sounds, uttered by the speaker, should be associated with the same ideas, which they will bear in the mind of the hearer. This may not be diffi cult, so long as the words used are the direct rep resentatives of the ideas, for which they stand. But when the representation is indirect, when the face of the word imports one thing, and the intent another, the discourse must inevitably be misunderstood, unless there be some common principle of

association between the borrowed word and its adventitious meaning. When the patriarch Jacob, on his death bed, called his sons together before him, to tell them that which should befal them in the last days, and said to them, Judah is a lion's whelp; Issachar is a strong ass; Dan shall be a serpent by the way; Naphtali is a hind let loose; Joseph is a fruitful bough; Benjamin shall raven as a wolf; it is not to be imagined, that they could understand him to mean literally what he said. The language was figurative. It was probably not clearly understood by those, to whom it was addressed; for it was prophetical not only of themselves, but of the fortunes, which awaited their descendants. There was however a meaning annexed to all these metaphorical expressions, which doubtless made them sufficiently intelligible at the time, for the purposes of divine Providence; and which has been further elucidated by the subsequent history of the twelve tribes, whose destinies were thus shadowed forth in the last words of their common ancestor. There is indeed in all the most eloquent compositions of Greek and Roman oratory nothing, which could more clearly exhibit the uses and exemplify the efficacy and propriety of figurative language, than