199 LECTURE XVI. HYPERBOLE-PERSONIFICATION.-APOSTROPHE. THE next figure concerning which I am to treat is called hyperbole, or exaggeration. It consists in magnifying an object beyond its natural bounds. It may be considered sometimes as a trope, and sometimes as a figure of thought: and here indeed the distinction between these two classes begins not to be clear, nor is it of any importance that we should have recourse to metaphysical subtilties, in order to keep them distinct. Whether we call it trope or figure, it is plain that it is a mode of speech which hath some foundation in nature. For in all languages, even in common conversation, hyperbolical expressions very frequently occur; as swift as the wind; as white as the snow, and the like; and our common forms of compliment are almost all of them extravagant hyperboles. If any thing be remarkably good or great in its kind, we are instantly ready to add to it some exaggerating epithet; and to make it the greatest or best we ever saw. The imagination has always a tendency to gratify itself, by magnifying its present object, and carrying it to excess. More or less of this hyperbolical turn will prevail in language, according to the liveliness of imagination among the people who speak it. Hence young people deal always much in hyperboles. Hence the language of the orientals was far more hyperbolical than that of the Europeans, who are of more phlegmatic, or, if you please, of more correct imagination. Hence, among all writers in early times, and in the rude periods of society, we may expect this figure to abound. Greater experience, and more cultivated society, abate the warmth of imagination, and chasten the manner of expression. The exaggerated expressions to which our ears are accustomed in conversation, scarcely strike us as hyperboles. In an instant we make the proper abatement, and understand them according to their just value. But when there is something striking and unusual in the form of a hyperbolical expression, it then rises into a figure of speech which draws our attention: and here it is necessary to observe, that unless the reader's imagination be in such a state as disposes it to rise and swell along with the hyperbolical expression, he is always hurt and offended by it. For a sort of disagreeable force is put upon him; he is required to strain and exert his fancy, when he feels Hence the hyperbole no inclination to make any such effort is a figure of difficult management; and ought neither to be On some occasions, frequently used, nor long dwelt upon. it is undoubtedly proper, being, as was before observed,' the natural style of a sprightly and heated imagination; but when hyperboles are unseasonable, or too frequent, they render a composition frigid and unaffecting. They are the resource of an author of feeble imagination; of one, describing objects which either want native dignity in themselves; or whose dignity he cannot show by describing them simply, and in their just proportions, and is therefore obliged to rest upon tumid and exaggerated expressions. Hyperboles are of two kinds; either such as are employed in description, or such as are suggested by the warmth of passion. The best, by far, are those which are the effect of passion for if the imagination has a tendency to magnify its objects beyond their natural proportion, passion possesses this tendency in a vastly stronger degree; and therefore not only excuses the most daring figures, but very often renders them natural and just. All passions, without exception, love, terror, amazement, indignation, anger, and even grief, throw the mind into confusion, aggravate their objects, and of course prompt a hyperbolical style. Hence the following sentiments of Satan, in Milton, as strongly as they are described, contain nothing but what is natural and proper; exhibiting the picture of a mind agitated with rage and despair : Me, miserable! which way shall I fly Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide, To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.-Book iv. I. 73. In simple description, though hyperboles are not excluded, yet they must be used with more caution, and require more preparation, in order to make the mind relish them. Either the object described must be of that kind, which of itself seizes the fancy strongly, and disposes it to run beyond bounds; something vast, surprising, and new, or the writer's art must be exerted in heating the fancy gradually, and preparing it to think highly of the object which he intends to exaggerate. When a poet is describing an earthquake or a storm, or when he has brought us into the midst of a battle, we can bear strong hyperboles without displeasure. But when he is describing only a woman in grief, it is impossible not to be disgusted with such wild exaggeration as the following, in one of our dramatic poets: -I found her on the floor In all the storm of grief, yet beautiful; That were the world on fire, they might have drown'd The wrath of heaven, and quench'd the mighty ruin.—LEE. This is mere bombast. The person herself who was under the distracting agitations of grief, might be permitted to hyperbolize strongly but the spectator describing her, cannot be allowed an equal liberty: for this plain reason, that the one is supposed to utter the sentiments of passion, the other speaks only the language of description, which is always according to the dictates of nature, on a lower tone: a distinction, which, however obvious, has not been attended to by many writers. How far a hyperbole, supposing it properly introduced, may be safely carried without overstretching it; what is the proper measure and boundary of this figure, cannot, as far as I know, be ascertained by any precise rule. Good sense, and just taste, must determine the point; beyond which if we pass, we become extravagant. Lucan may be pointed out as an author apt to be excessive in his hyperboles. Among the compliments paid by the Roman poets to their emperors, it had become fashionable to ask them, what part of the heavens they would choose for their habitation, after they should have become gods? Virgil had already carried this sufficiently far in his address to Augustus: -Tibi brachia contrahit ardens Scorpius, et cœli justa plus parte relinquit.*—Georg. i. 34. But this did not suffice Lucan. Resolved to outdo all his predecessors, in a like address to Nero, he very gravely beseeches him not to choose his place near either of the poles, but to be sure to occupy just the middle of the heavens, lest, by going either to one side or other, his weight should overset the universe. Sed neque in Arctoo sedem tibi legeris orbe, "The scorpion, ready to receive thy laws, But, oh! whatever be thy godhead great, Such thoughts as these, are what the French call outres. and always proceed from a false fire of genius. The Spanish and African writers, as Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustin, are remarked for being fond of them. As in that epitaph on Charles V. by a Spanish writer. Pro tumulo ponas orbem, pro tegmine cœlum, Sometimes they dazzle and impose by their boldness; but wherever reason and good sense are so much violated, there can be no true beauty. Epigrammatic writers are frequently guilty in this respect; resting the whole merit of their epigrams on some extravagant hyperbolical turn; such as the following of Dr. Pitcairn's, upon Holland's being gained from the ocean : Tellurem fecere Dii; sua litora Belgæ; So much for the hyperbole. We proceed now to those figures which lie altogether in the thought; where the words are taken in their common and literal sense. Among these, the first place is unquestionably due to Personification, or that figure by which we attribute life and action to inanimate objects. The technical term for this is prosopopoeia: but as personification is of the same import, and more allied to our own language, it will be better to use this word. It is a figure, the use of which is very extensive, and its foundation laid deep in human nature. At first view, and when considered abstractly, it would appear to be a figure of the utmost boldness, and to border on the extravagant and ridiculous. For what can seem more remote from the track of reasonable thought, than to speak of stones and trees, and fields and rivers, as if they were living creatures, and to attribute to them thought and sensation, affections and actions? One might imagine this to be no more than childish conceit, which no person of taste could relish. In fact, however, the case is very different. No such ridiculous Press not too much on any part the sphere; And with a juster balance fix the skies.RowE. effect is produced by personification, when properly employed; on the contrary, it is found to be natural and agreeable; nor is any very uncommon degree of passion required, in order to make us relish it. All poetry, even in its most gentle and humble forms, abounds with it. From prose, it is far from being excluded: nay, in common conversation, very frequent approaches are made to it. When we say the ground thirsts for rain, or the earth smiles with plenty; when we speak of ambition's being restless, or a disease being deceitful, such expressions show the facility with which the mind can accommodate the properties of living creatures to things that are inanimate, or to abstract conceptions of its own forming. Indeed, it is very remarkable, that there is a wonderful proneness in human nature to animate all objects. Whether this arises from a sort of assimilating principle, from a propension to spread a resemblance of ourselves over all other things, or from whatever other cause it arises, so it is, that almost every emotion which in the least agitates the mind, bestows upon its object a momentary idea of life. Let a man, by an unwary step, sprain his ancle, or hurt his foot upon a stone, and, in the ruffled discomposed moment, he will, sometimes, feel himself disposed to break the stone in pieces, or to utter passionate expressions against it, as if it had done him an injury. If one has been long accustomed to a certain set of objects, which have made a strong impression on his imagination; as to a house, where he has passed many agreeable years; or to fields, and trees, and mountains, among which he has often walked with the greatest delight: when he is obliged to part with them, especially if he has no prospect of ever seeing them again, he can scarce avoid having somewhat of the same feeling as when he is leaving old friends. They seem endowed with life. They become objects of his affection; and, in the moment of his parting, it scarce seems absurd to him, to give vent to his feeling in words, and to take a formal adieu. So strong is that impression of life which is made upon us, by the more magnificent and striking objects of nature especially, that I doubt not, in the least, of this having been one cause of the multiplication of divinities in the heathen world. The belief of dryads and naiads, of the genius of the wood, and the god of the river, among men of lively imaginations, in the early ages of the world, easily arose from this turn of mind. When their favourite rural objects had often been animated in their fancy, it was an easy transition to attribute to them some |