way out-heroded Herod, intimating, that by the outrageous gestures they used in the representation, they overacted even the fury and violence of that tyrant. This trope hath been admirably imitated by Swift, who says concerning Blackmore, the author of a translation of some of the psalms into English verse,

Sternhold himself he out-sternholded.

How languid in comparison of this would it have been to say, that in Sternhold's own manner Sir Richard outdid him. But it must be owned, that this trope, the onomatopeia, in any form whatever, hath little scope in our tongue, and is hardly admissible except in burlesque.

2. THE MOST INTERESTING CIRCUMSTANCE DISTINGUISHED.

THE second way I shall take notice of, wherein the use of tropes may conduce to vivacity, is, when the trope tends to fix the attention on that particular of the subject which is most interesting, or on which the action related, or fact referred to, immediately depends. This bears a resemblance to the former method; for by that an individual serves to exhibit a species, and a species a genus; by this a part is made to represent the whole, the abstract, as logicians term it, to suggest the concrete, the passion its object, the operation its subject, the instrument the agent, and the gift the giver. The tropes which contribute in this way to invigorate the expression are these two, the synecdoché and the metonymy.

For an illustration of this in the synecdoché, let it be observed, that by this trope, the word hand is sometimes used for man, especially one employed in manual labour. Now in such expressions as the following,

All hands employ'd the royal work grows warm;*

it is obvious, from the principles above explained, that the trope contributes to vivacity, and could not be with equal advantage supplied by a proper term. But in such phrases as these, "One of the hands fell overboard;" "All our hands were asleep," it is ridiculous, as what is affirmed hath no particular relation to the part specified. The application of tropes in this undistinguishing manner is what principally characterizes the contemptible cant of particular professions. I shall give another example. A sail with us frequently denotes a ship. Now to say, "We descried a sail at a distance," hath more vivacity than to say, "We descried a ship," because in fact the sail is that part which is first discovered by the eye; but to say "our sails ploughed the main," instead of "our ships ploughed the main," would justly be accounted nonsensical, because what is metaphorically termed ploughing the main is the immediate

* Dryden.

action of the keel, a very different part of the vessel. To produce but one other instance, the word roof is emphatically put for house in the following quotation:

Return to her? and fifty men dismiss'd?
No; rather I abjure all roofs, and choose
To be a comrade with the wolf and owl,
To wage against the enmity o' th' air,
Necessity's sharp pinch*

The notion of a house as a shelter from the inclemencies of the sky, alluded to in these lines, directly leads the imagination to form a more vivid idea of that part of the building which is over our heads.†

It was observed, that the metonymy also contributes in this way to vivacity. It doth so by substituting the instrument for the agent, by employing the abstract to represent the concrete, or by naming the passion for its object, the gift for the giver, the operation for the subject. Of the first sort, the instances are very common; as when we say of a poem, that it is the production of an elegant pen, instead of an elegant writer. In the same way pencil is sometimes used for painter. It must be owned, that the triteness of such expressions considerably lessens their value, and that for a reason explained in the preceding part of this Section. It is however certain, that what vivacity can justly be ascribed to them ariseth purely from the principle which hath just now been illustrated in the synecdoché; namely, a coincidence in the expression with the bent of the imagination, both pointing to that particular with which the subject spoken of is immediately connected. Nay, so close is the relation between this species of the metonymy, and that of the synecdoché above exemplified, that the same expression may sometimes be considered indifferently as belonging to either trope. Thus in the quotation brought from Dryden, "All hands employ'd," it is of no consequence whether we denominate the word hands one or other, a part for the whole, or the instrument for the agent.

*Shakspeare's Lear.

The Latin example quoted from Tully in a note on the first part of this Section affords a good illustration of this doctrine. "Cujus latus ille mucro petebat?" Mucro for gladius, the point for the weapon, is in this place a trope particularly apposite. From the point the danger immediately proceeds; to it therefore, in any assault, the eye both of the assailant and of the assailed, are naturally directed: of the one that he may guide it aright, and of the other that he may avoid it. Consequently on it the imagination will fix, as on that particular which is the most interesting, because on it the event directly depends and wherever the expression thus happily assists the fancy, by coinciding with its natural bent, the sentiment is exhibited with vivacity. We may remark by the way, that the specifying of the part aimed at, by saying Cujus latus, and not simply quem, makes the expression still more graphical. Yet latus here is no trope, else it had been Quod latus, not Cujus latus. But that we may conceive the difference between such a proper use of tropes, as is here exemplified, and such an injudicious use as noway tends to enliven the expression, let us suppose the orator had intended to say, "he held a sword in his hand." If instead of the proper word he had employed the synecdoché, and said, " mucronem manu tenebat," he would have spoken absurdly, and counteracted the bent of the fancy, which in this instance leads the attention to the hilt of the sword, not to the point.

The second species of metonymy mentioned, the abstract for the concrete, occurs much seldomer, but hath also in the same way a very good effect. Isaac Bickerstaff, in his lucubrations, acquaints us with a visit which an eminent rake and his companions made to a protestant nunnery erected in England by some ladies of rank. "When he entered," says the author, "upon seeing a servant coming towards him, with a design to tell him, this was no place for them, up goes my grave Impudence to the maid."* Every body must perceive, that the expression would have been incomparably fainter, if he had said, "Up goes my grave impudent fellow to the maid." The reason is obvious, an impudent fellow means one who, amongst other qualities, has that of impudence; whereas, by personifying the abstract, you leave no room for thinking of any other quality; the attention is entirely fixed on that to which the action related is imputable, and thus the natural tendency of the fancy is humoured by the expression.

The last species of this trope I took notice of, if that can be called one species which is so various in its appearances, presenting us sometimes with the passion instead of its object, sometimes with the operation instead of its subject, and sometimes with the gift instead of the giver, is in very frequent use. By this trope the Almighty hath been styled "the terror of the oppressor, and the refuge of the oppressed;" which, though the same in sense, is more emphatical than "the object of terror to the oppressor, and the giver of refuge to the oppressed." "The Lord is my song," says Moses," he is become my salvation," that is, the subject of my song, the author of my salvation. Dryden makes Lord Shaftesbury style the Duke of Monmouth

The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme,

The young men's vision, and the old men's dream.‡

Here the terms prayer, vision, dream, (for the word theme is literal) are used each for its respective subject. Nothing is more natural or more common amongst all nations, the simplest as well as the most refined, than to substitute the passion for its object. Such tropes as these, my love, my joy, my delight, my aversion, my horror, for that which excites the emotion, are to be found in every language. Holy writ abounds in them; and they are not seldom to be met with in the poems of Ossian. "The sigh of her secret soul," is a fine metonymy of this kind to express the youth for whom she sighs in secret. As the vivacity of the expression in such quotations needs no illustration to persons of taste; that the cause of this vivacity ariseth from the concidence of the expression with the bent of the imagination, fixing on the most interesting particular, needs no eviction to persons of judgement.

* Tatler, No. 32.

† Exod. xv. 2.

Absalom and Architophel.

3. THINGS SENSIBLE FOR THINGS INTELLIGIBLE.

A THIRD way wherein tropes may be rendered subservient to vivacity, is when things intelligible are represented by things sensible. There is no truth more evident than that the imagination is more strongly affected by what is perceived by the senses, than by what is conceived by the understanding. If, therefore, my subject be of things only conceivable, it will conduce to enliven the style, that the tropes which I employ, when I find it convenient to employ tropes, exhibit to the fancy things perceivable.

I shall illustrate this doctrine first in metaphors. A metaphor, if apposite, hath always some degree of vivacity, from the bare exhibition of likeness, even though the literal and the figurative senses of the word belong to the same class of objects; I mean only in this respect the same, that they be both sensible or both intelligible. — Thus a blunder in the administration of public affairs hath been termed a solecism in politics, both things intelligible. Again, when the word sails is employed to denote the wings of a fowl, or conversely, when the word wings is adopted to signify the sails of a ship, both objects are of the same class, as both things are sensible; yet these metaphors have a considerable share of vivacity, by reason of the striking resemblance, both in the appearance of the things signified, and in their use. The last, however, is the best, for a reason which will be given in the next remark. But in general it may be asserted, that, in the representation of things sensible, there is less occasion for this trope: accordingly this application of it is now almost entirely left to the poets. On the contrary, if we critically examine any language, ancient or modern, and trace its several terms and phrases to their source, we shall find it hold invariably, that all the words made use of to denote spiritual and intellectual things. are in their origin metaphors, taken from the objects of sense. This shows evidently, that the latter have made the earliest impressions, have by consequence first obtained names in every tongue, and are still, as it were, more present with us, and strike the imagination more forcibly than the former.

It may be said, that if this observation be true, it is to no purpose to mention, as a method of enlivening the diction, the representing of intelligible things by sensible images, since it is impossible by language to represent them otherwise. To this I answer, that the words of which I am speaking I call metaphors in their origin; notwithstanding which, they may be at present, agreeably to what was formerly observed, proper terms. When speaking of tropes in general, it was remarked that many words, which to a grammatical eye appear metaphors, are in the rhetorician's estimate no metaphors at all. The ground of this difference is, that the grammarian and the rhetorician try the words by very different tests. The touch-stone of the former is etymology, that of the latter is present use. The former peruseth a page, and perhaps finds not in the whole, ten words that are not metaphorical; the latter examines the same page, and doth not discover in it a single metaphor. What critic, for example,

would ever think of applying this appellation to terms such as these, spirit, evidence, understanding, reflection? Or what etymologist would not acknowledge, that to this trope solely these terms had owed their birth?

But I proceed to give examples of vivacity, by true rhetorical metaphors, wherein things sensible are brought to signify things intelligible. Of this the following is one from Pope :

At length Erasmus, that great injur'd name,
(The glory of the priesthood, and the shame!)
Stemm'd the wild torrent of a barbarous age,
And drove those holy Vandals off the stage.

Here the almost irresistible influence of general manners, which is an object purely of the understanding, is very appositely and vivaciously represented by a torrent, an object both of the sight and of the feeling. By the same vivid kind of metaphor, light is used for knowledge, bridle for restraint; we speak of burning with zeal, being inflamed with anger, and having a rooted prejudice.

But metaphor is not the only trope which can in this way confer vivacity, metonymy frequently in a similar manner promotes the same end.

One very common species of the metonymy is, when the badge is put for the office, and this invariably exhibits a sensible in lieu of an intelligible object. Thus we say the mitre for the priesthood, the crown for the royalty; for the military occupation we say the sword; and for the literary professions, those especially of theology, law, and physic, the common expression is the gown. Often also in those metonymies wherein the cause is put for the effect, and contrariwise in those wherein the effect is put for the cause, we have the same thing exemplified, a sensible object presented to the mind instead of an intelligible. Of the former, the cause for the effect, the following lines of Dryden may serve as an illustration :

'Tis all thy business, business how to shun,
To bask thy naked body in the sun."

Though the rhyme had permitted the change, the word sun-shine, instead of the sun, would have rendered the expression weaker. The luminary itself is not only a nobler and distincter, but a more immediate object to the imagination than its effulgence, which, though in some respects sensible as well as the other, is in some respect merely intelligible, it not being perceived directly no more than the air, but discovered by reflection from the things which it enlightens. Accordingly we ascribe to it neither magnitude nor figure, and scarce with propriety even colour. As an exemplification of the latter, the effect or something consequential for the cause, or at least the implement for the motive of using it, these words of scripture will serve, "the sword without, and terror within," where the term sword, which presents a particular and perceivable image to the fancy, must be more picturesque than the word war, which conveys an idea that

* Dryden's Persius.

t + Deut. xxxii. 25.