things conceivable, it will much contribute to enliven his style, that the figures he may think proper to

introduce be drawn from the material world.

There is a certain degree of vivacity in every metaphor, even where the literal and the figurative meaning of the word belong to the same class of objects. Thus, a blunder has been called an anomaly, both words belonging to the class of abstraction. Again, the words step and measure are employed for each other metaphorically, and are both originally concrete terms. But there is a particular vivacity when sensible objects are used to represent abstract ideas; there is here a picturesque effect which is not found in the other cases. When the poet speaks of a torrent of vice, for the influence of evil manners, the single word forms a lively picture in the mind, and is particularly gratifying to the imagination. By the same kind of metaphor, light is used for knowledge; a bridle for restraint, &c. Burning zeal, inflamed with anger, a rooted prejudice, &c., may be traced to the same principle.

Vivacity may also be produced when, in adopting figurative expressions, animate rather than inanimate objects are presented to view. The imagination has more sympathy with sentient creatures than with inert matter, and consequently, beings awaken in us. more attention than things without life. This may probably be the reason why the term vivacity is applied to such a style, as the word itself implies life, vigour, and energy.

According to this principle, a literary work is frequently called the offspring of the brain; and the

early period of a nation's existence is termed its infancy, or childhood, &c.

But when sense, feeling, and affection are ascribed metaphorically to inanimate objects, the energy of the style is still more increased. Thomson, describing the effect of the sun on snow, says :

"Perhaps the vale

Relents awhile to the reflected ray."

The great beauty, as well as power, of this passage lies in the word relents, which makes the whole scene instinct with life and feeling. By the same form of metaphor, we commonly say, a happy life, a learned age, a melancholy disaster, &c.

The same purpose may be answered by metonymy. 1st. Where the inventor is put for the invention: for instance, Ceres for bread; Bacchus for wine; Mars for war; Neptune for the sea, &c. This figure, however, though frequently adopted by the classical writers of antiquity, is seldom introduced by the moderns.

Another class of metonymies is where animate are used for inanimate things, the concrete for the abstract; as, the fool, for folly; the knave, for knavery; the philosopher, for philosophy, &c.; as, “He durst not speak; but wisely kept the fool within." "Craterus loves the king (i. e., the kingly office); but Hæphestion loves Alexander." So Swift, "I hate the viceroy, love the man.” “Brutus was attached to the man (Cæsar), but detested the tyrant" (his tyranny). "There spoke all the father" (i. e., fatherly feeling), &c. Of the whole of this class of figures it may be said that as a metaphor may be termed an allegory in epitome, so those

metaphors and metonymies which present us with animate for inanimate objects are personifications in miniature.

ON ALLUSION.

The figure of speech called Allusion is that by which some well-known fact in history, or the sayings or opinions of some eminent writer, are recalled to mind. It will, doubtless, require very extensive learning to understand all the allusions we may meet with in the course of our reading; but the young student should never allow an obscure allusion to pass, without noting it down for inquiry. The following are examples of this figure:

"When you see the people of this republic [Athens] banishing and murdering their best and ablest citizens, dissipating the public treasure with the most senseless extravagance, and spending their whole time as spectators or actors, in playing, fiddling, dancing, or singing, does it not, my Lord, strike your imagination with the image of a complex Nero?"-Burke.

The next example is from the same author. Lamenting the public calamities, and inveighing against the violent spirit of innovation then prevalent, he says:

"Novelty is not the only source of zeal. Why should not a Maccabeus and his brethren arise to assert the honour of the ancient laws, and to defend the temple of their forefathers, with as ardent a spirit as can inspire any innovator to destroy the monuments of the piety and the glory of ancient ages?"

"The case of Tantalus, in the region of poetic punishment, was somewhat to be pitied, because the

fruits that hung about him retired from his hand; but what tenderness can be claimed by those who, though perhaps they suffer the pains of Tantalus, will never lift their hands for their own relief?"—Johnson.

"When a king asked Euclid, the mathematician, whether he could not explain his art to him in a more compendious manner, he was answered, that there was no royal road to geometry!"-Ibid.

ON CLIMAX.

Climax, or Amplification, as it is called by Quintilian, consists in arranging the circumstances of some description, object, or action, in such an order that they become more and more magnified as we proceed, till the idea is raised to the highest. The principle of this figure is similar to the one on which is built the rule for arranging arguments in a composition; viz., that they should be placed so as to continually increase in power. For, as arguments thus arranged are likely to produce a stronger conviction of truth, so, a climax, when judiciously managed, gradually unfolds the image to the mind, and thus more effectually gratifies the imagination. For example:

"For eighteen months, without intermission, this destruction raged from the gates of Madras to the gates of Tanjore; and so completely did these masters in their art, Hyder Ali and his ferocious son, absolve themselves of their impious vow, that, when the British armies traversed, as they did, the Carnatic for hundreds of miles in all directions, through the whole line of their march, they did not see one man, not one woman, not one child, not one four-footed

beast of any description whatever. One dead, uniform silence reigned over the whole region!"-Burke.

"A man of polite imagination is let into a great many pleasures that the vulgar are not capable of receiving. He can converse with a picture, and find an agreeable companion in a statue. He meets with a secret refreshment in a description, and often feels a greater satisfaction in the prospect of fields and meadows, than another does in the possession. It gives him, indeed, a kind of property in everything he sees, and makes the most rude, uncultivated parts of nature administer to his pleasures; so that he looks upon the whole world, as it were, in another light, and discovers in it a multitude of charms that conceal themselves from the generality of mankind.”—Addison.

In the whole range of English literature, there is, perhaps, none more strikingly illustrative of the figure climax than this passage. Many in reading it may probably feel a secret pleasure in its beauty for which they cannot wholly account. The leading cause of this charm consists in the management of the climax. The writer having laid down his position, proceeds to illustrate it by reference, firstly, to single objects 'picture' and a 'statue;' secondly, he goes on to 'fields' and 'meadows;' then the view is expanded to the 'rude, uncultivated parts of nature;' and, lastly, the 'whole world' is brought before the reader's imagination.

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The following description, from Thomson's "Seasons," may also be quoted as a beautiful example of this figure:

""Tis listening fear, and dumb amazement all,

When to the startled eye, the sudden glance