That chase thee from thy country, and expose Of non-sparing war? And is it I Eneid, ii. 54. That drive thee from the sportive court, where thou Of smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers, That ride upon the violent speed of fire, Fly with false aim; pierce the still moving air All's Well that End's Well, Act III. Sc. 4. And let them lift ten thousand swords, said Nathos, with a smile; the sons of car-borne Usnoth will never tremble in danger. Why dost thou roll with all thy foam, thou roaring sea of Ullin? why do ye rustle on your dark wings, ye whistling tempests of the sky? Do ye think, ye storms, that ye keep Nathos on the coast? No; his soul detains him, children of the night! Althos, bring my father's arms, &c.-Fingal. Whither hast thou fled, O wind, said the king of Morven! Dost thou rustle in the chambers of the south, and pursue the shower in other lands? Why comest not thou to my sails, to the blue face of my seas? The foe is in the land of Morven, and the king is absent.-Fingal. Hast thou left thy blue course in heaven, golden-haired son of the sky! The west hath opened its gates; the bed of thy repose is there. The waves gather to behold thy beauty; they lift their trembling heads; they see thee lovely in thy sleep, but they shrink away with fear. Rest in thy shadowy cave, O Sun! and let thy return be in joy.-Fingal. Daughter of Heaven, fair art thon! the silence of thy face is pleasant. Thou comest forth in loveliness; the stars attend thy blue steps in the east. The clouds rejoice in thy presence, O Moon! and brighten their dark-brown sides. Who is like thee in heaven, daughter of the night! The stars are ashamed in thy presence, and turn aside their sparkling eyes. Whither dost thou retire from thy course, when the darkness of thy countenance grows? Hast thou thy hall like Ossian? Dwellest thou in the shadow of grief? Have thy sisters fallen from heaven? and are they who rejoiced with thee at night no more? Yes, they have fallen, fair light; and often dost thou retire to mourn.-But thou thyself shalt one night fail; and leave thy blue path in heaven. The stars will then lift their heads; they, who in thy presence were ashamed, wil! rejoice.-Fingal. This figure, like all others, requires an agitation of mind. In plain narrative, as, for example, in giving the genealogy of a family, it has no good effect: -Fauno Picus pater: isque parentem Te, Saturne, refert; tu sanguinis ultimus auctor.-Æneid, vii. 43. SECTION III. 519. In this figure, by which an object is magnified or diminished beyond truth, we have another effect of the foregoing principle. An 518. Define apostrophe. With what other figure is it often joined? The state of mind It requires. object of an uncommon size, either very great of its kind or very little, strikes us with surprise; and this emotion produces a momentary conviction that the object is greater or less than it is in reality (see chapter viii.). The same effect, precisely, attends figurative grandeur or littleness; and hence the hyperbole, which expresses that momentary conviction. A writer, taking advantage of this natural delusion, warms his description greatly by the hyperbole; and the reader, even in his coolest moments, relishes the figure, being sensible that it is the operation of nature upon a glowing fancy. It cannot have escaped observation, that a writer is commonly more successful in magnifying by an hyperbole than in diminishing. The reason is, that a minute object contracts the mind, and fetters the power of imagination; but that the mind, dilated and inflamed with a grand object, moulds objects for its gratification with great facility. Longinus, with respect to diminishing hyperbole, quotes the following ludicrous thought from a comic poet: "He was owner of a bit of ground no larger than a Lacedemonian letter." (Chapter xxxi. of his Treatise on the Sublime.) But, for the reason now given, the hyperbole has by far the greater force in magnifying objects; of which take the following examples: For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth; so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.--Genesis, xiii. 15, 16. Illa vel intactæ segetis per summa volaret Gramina: nec teneras cursu læsisset aristas.-Eneid, vii. 808. -Atque imo barathri ter gurgite vastos Sorbet in abruptum fluctus, rursusque sub auras Erigit alternos, et sidera verberat undâ.-Ibid. iii. 421. -Horrificis juxta tonat Etna ruinis, Interdumque atram prorumpit ad æthera nubem, Turbine fumantem piceo et candente favilla: Attollitque globos flammarum, et sidera lambit.-Ibid. iii. 571. Speaking of Polyphemus: Sidera. -Ipse arduus, altaque pulsat Ibid. iii. 619. -When he speaks, The air, a charter'd libertine, is still.-Henry V. Act I. Sc. 1. Now shield with shield, with helmet helmet closed, To armor armor, lance to lance opposed. Host against host with shadowy squadrons drew, The sounding darts in iron tempests flew. Victors and vanquish'd join promiscuous cries, And shrilling shouts and dying groans arise: With streaming blood the slippery fields are dyed, And slaughter'd heroes swell the dreadful tide.-Iliad, iv. 508. 519. Define hyperbole. Why it is easier to magnify than to diminish by hyperbola The figure, natural. 520. Having examined the nature of this figure, and the principle on which it is erected, I proceed, as in the first section, to the rules by which it ought to be governed. And, in the first place, it is a capital fault to introduce an hyperbole in the description of any thing ordinary or familiar; for in such a case it is altogether unnatural, being destitute of surprise, its only foundation. Take the following instance, where the subject is extremely familiar, viz., swimming to gain the shore after a shipwreck: I saw him beat the surges under him, And ride upon their backs; he trode the water, The surge most swoln that met him: his bold head To th' shore, that o'er his wave-borne basis bow'd, Tempest, Act II. Sc. 1. In the next place, it may be gathered from what is said, that an hyperbole can never suit the tone of any dispiriting passion: sorrow in particular will never prompt such a figure; for which reason the following hyperboles must be condemned as unnatural : K. Rich. Aumerle, thou weep'st, my tender-hearted cousin! Our sighs, and they, shall lodge the summer-corn, And make a dearth in this revolting land.-Richard II. Act III. Sc. 6. Draw them to Tyber's bank, and weep your tears Into the channel, till the lowest stream Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.-Julius Cæsar, Act I. Sc. 1. Thirdly, A writer, if he wish to succeed, ought always to have the reader in his eye: he ought in particular never to venture a bold thought or expression till the reader be warned and prepared. For that reason an hyperbole in the beginning of a work can never be in its place. Example: 521. The nicest point of all is to ascertain the natural limits of an hyperbole, beyond which being overstrained, it hath a bad effect. Longinus, in the above-cited chapter, with great propriety of thought enters a caveat against an hyperbole of this kind: he compares it to a bow-string, which relaxes by overstraining, and produceth an effect directly opposite to what is intended. To ascertain any precise boundary would be difficult, if not impracticable. Mine shall be an humbler task, which is, to give a specimen of what I reckon overstrained hyperbole; and I shall be brief upon them, because examples are to be found everywhere: no fault is more common among writers of inferior rank, and instances are found even 520. Capital fault. The passion that is unsuited to hyperbole.-When a bold thought or expression may be ventured. among classical writers: witness the following hyperbole, too bold even for a Hotspur. Hotspur talking of Mortimer : In single opposition hand to hand, He did confound the best part of an hour In changing hardiment with great Glendower. Three times they breathed, and three times did they drink, Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood, Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks, Speaking of Henry V.: First Part Henry IV. Act I. Sc. 4. England ne'er had a king until his time: His brandish'd sword did blind men with his beams: First Part Henry VI. Act I. Sc. 1. Lastly, An hyperbole, after it is introduced with all advantages, ought to be comprehended within the fewest words possible as it cannot be relished but in the hurry and swelling of the mind, a leisurely view dissolves the charm, and discovers the description to be extravagant at least, and perhaps also ridiculous. This fault is palpable in a sonnet which passeth for one of the most complete in the French language. Phillis, in a long and florid description, is made as far to outshine the sun as he outshines the stars: Le silence régnoit sur la terre et sur l'onde, Quand la jeune Phillis au visage riant, Fit voir une lumière et plus vive et plus belle. Sacré flambeau du jour, n'en soyez point jaloux. Vous parûtes alors aussi peu devant elle, Que les feux de la nuit avoient fait devant vous.-. There is in Chaucer a thought expressed in a single line, which gives more lustre to a young beauty than the whole of this muchlabored poem: Up rose the sun, and up rose Emelie. 521. The natural limits of hyperbole. In what words to be conveyed. SECTION IV. The Means or Instrument conceived to be the Agent. 522. WHEN We survey a number of connected objects, that which makes the greatest figure employs chiefly our attention; and the emotion it raises, if lively, prompts us even to exceed nature in the conception we form of it. Take the following examples: For Neleus' son Alcides' rage had slain. A broken rock the force of Pirus threw. In these instances, the rage of Hercules and the force of Pirus being the capital circumstances, are so far exalted as to be conceived the agents that produce the effects. In the following instances, hunger being the chief circumstance in the description, is itself imagined to be the patient: Whose hunger has not tasted food these three days.-Jane Shore. As when the force Of subterranean wind transports a hill.-Paradise Lost. -As when the potent rod Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day Waved round the coast, upcall'd a pitchy cloud Of locusts. Paradise Lost. い SECTION V. A Figure which, among Related Objects, extends the Properties of one to another. 523. THIS figure is not dignified with a proper name, because it has been overlooked by writers. It merits, however, a place in this work; and must be distinguished from those formerly handled, as depending on a different principle. Giddy brink, jovial wine, daring wound, are examples of this figure. Here are adjectives that cannot be made to signify any quality of the substantives to which they are joined a brink, for example, cannot be termed giddy in a sense, either proper or figurative, that can signify any of its qualities or attributes. When we examine attentively the expression, we discover that a brink is termed giddy from producing that effect in those who stand on it. In the same manner a wound is said to be 522. In surveying connected objects, what gains chief attention ?-How the capital circumstances are sometimes exalted. Examples. |
