greatest magnitudes and numbers, yea terms denoting infinities themselves, raise only indeterminate and finite ideas in our minds, we may eafily conceive that the state of mind produced by an attempt to realize hyperbolical expreffions, may not be more than barely adequate to the ideas intended to be conveyed. Let us, for example, endeavour to form an idea of a number equal to that of the dust of the earth: the conception may not, in fact, reach to a just idea of the vast numbers of the pofterity of Abraham. So that hyperboles, thus properly circumftanced, may, by the appearance of falfehood, lead the mind nearer to the truth than any expreffions more literally true. In this cafe it feems to be very evident, that if the Divine Being had only said that the feed of Abraham fhould be exceedingly numerous, or had even affigned the precife number of them, the idea excited in the mind of Abraham, by fuch an expreffion, would not have been fo near the truth, as that which is produced by the attempt to conceive a number equal to that of the dust of the earth.

It may perhaps, therefore, be no great paradox, if it be laid down as a maxim, that hyberboles are then only proper when they serve to lead our conceptions nearer to the truth than any other forms of expreffion; and that they must be condemned, as ftrained and unnatural, when the idea they excite in our minds really exceeds the idea

that

that ought to be excited by the object described by them. The following account of the valour of Henry the Fifth, in Shakespeare, is certainly extravagantly hyperbolical:

England ne'er had a king until his time:
Virtue he had deferving to command :

His brandifh'd fword did blind men with its beams:
His arms fpread wider than a dragon's wings:
His fparkling eyes, replete with aweful fire,
More dazzled and drove back his enemies
Than mid-day fun fierce bent against their faces.
What should I fay, his deeds exceed all speech;
He never lifted up his hand but conquer'd.

First Part of HENRY VI. Act I. Scene 1.

In many cafes the generality of readers may be apt to think an hyperbole overcharged, for want of entering into an author's fentiments and views of things. A person, for instance, who had seen a ftorm at sea might not think the following lines in Virgil's description of one much overcharged:

Atque imo barathri ter gurgite vaftos

Sorbet in abruptum fluctus rurfufque fub auras
Erigit alternos, et fidera verberat unda.

ENEID. lib. III. ver. 421.

Likewife, if we only make proper allowance for the notions which the common people of all countries ftill entertain of murder, and how much they imagine a particular providence is concerned to detect and punish murderers, we may not, perhaps,

U 2

perhaps, be very fevere upon the following speech of the Bastard to Haftings, upon his fufpecting him to have murdered prince Arthur:

If thou didst but confent

To do this moft cruel act, do but despair,
And if thou want a cord, the smallest thread
That ever spider twisted from her womb
Will strangle thee. A rufh will be a beam

To hang thee on. Or would'ft thou drown thyself,
Put but a little water in a bafon,
And it fhall be as all the ocean,
Enough to ftifle fuch a villain up.
I do fufpect thee very grievously.

KING JOHN, A& IV. Scene 7.

The extravagant hyperbole is the common fault of those writers who aim at the fublime, and the ftile that abounds with it is generally termed the bombaft. As the hyperbole is a figure that has a very striking effect, and is extremely easy in itself (for what can be easier than to exceed the truth in description ?) writers whofe aim was to elevate and aftonish their readers have often adopted it, without confidering how few circumftances there are in which it can be admitted with propriety. They have not always confidered whether every thing preceding, and accompanying that figure, would contribute to make it carry along with it a conviction, that no other form of expreffion could fo clearly convey the proper idea. For if it be the expreffion, and not the idea, that furprizes a reader, it is a fure mark that the ex

preffion

preffion was improper; fince, when it is proper, it only conveys the idea, and doth not draw any attention upon itfelf.

Had these things been confidered, we should not, perhaps, have feen many hyperboles at the beginning of a compofition, introduced in places where the ideas did not require to be elevated or enlarged by any foreign affiftance, or put into the mouths of perfons who were not under the influence of any strong paffion, or a very lively imagination. Of all our late writers of character, Dryden and Lee feem to have been the most intemperate in the ufe of the hyperbole.

As great a departure as an hyperbole is from truth, and consequently as ftriking as this figure must be, custom has perfectly reconciled our minds to many very extraordinary inftances of it; particularly when the hyperbole flows from a lively imagination, and is not uttered in the vehemence of paffion. Any perfon may amuse himself in feeing this verified, if he only take a turn upon a bowling-green, and observe when a bowl is faid, by fome perfons engaged in the diverfion, to be a mile, or a hundred, or five hundred miles, from the jack. Besides, how many familiar expreffions, in common conversation, pass without censure, which yet are extravagantly hyperbolical; as when we fay, A man is nothing but skin and bone, &c.

Perfons of little reading, and confequently grofs conceptions, have little feeling of, or relish for,

any

any thing but what is very extravagant. Nothing but the marvellous and fupernatural hath any charms for them; but as their tafte refines, in confequence of a greater attention to, and more exact knowledge of, human nature and the world, they learn to diftinguifh and relish the more delicate beauties of compofition; they become disgusted with every thing that is extravagant, and can admire nothing that deviates far from strict propriety. · Accordingly, we fee that the style of the generality of writers (which muft keep pace with the general improvement of tafte) approaches nearer to a medium. The books which took with the generality of readers in the last age are little read, and are little capable of pleasing, now. Indeed, fomething fimilar to this may be obferved in every individual. Few perfons, when they are advanced in life, and their judgment ripened, can relish the compofitions which charmed them when young. We are told that Milton would read, with the greatest avidity and rapture, all the books of chivalry and romance that he could meet with, when he was young; but we can never imagine that he would have borne with any patience those extravagant fictions, and the bombaft ftyle in which they were generally compofed at the time that he wrote the Paradife Loft.

LECTURE