XIV. Words, and Figures of Thought. The for- LECT. mer, Figures of Words, are commonly called Tropes, and confift in a word's being employed to fignify fomething that is different from its original and primitive meaning; fo that if you alter the word, you deftroy the Figure. Thus, in the inftance I gave before "Light arifeth to the upright, in darkness.' The Trope confifts in "light and darkness," being not meant literally, but fubftituted for comfort and adverfity, on account of fome refemblance or analogy which they are fup. posed to bear to these conditions of life. The other class, termed Figures of Thought, fupposes the words to be used in their proper and literal meaning, and the Figure to confist in the turn of the thought; as is the cafe in exclamations, interrogations, apostrophes, and comparisons; where, though you vary the words that are used, or tranflate them from one Language into another, you may, nevertheless, ftill preferve the fame Figure in the Thought. This diftinction, however, is of no great ufe; as nothing can be built upon it in practice; neither is it always very clear. It is of little importance, whether we give to fome particular mode of expreffion the name of a Trope, or of a Figure; provided we remember, that Figurative Language always imports fome colouring of the imagination, or fome emotion of paffion, expreffed in our Style: XIV. LECT. Style: And, perhaps, Figures of Imagination, and Figures of Paffion, might be a more useful diftribution of the fubject. But, without infifting on any artificial divifions, it will be more useful, that I enquire into the Origin and the Nature of Figures. Only, before I proceed to this, there are two general obfervations which it may be proper to premise. THE firft is, concerning the use of rules with respect to Figurative Language. I admit, that persons may both speak and write with propriety, who know not the names of any of the Figures of Speech, nor ever studied any rules relating to them. Nature, as was before observed, dictates the use of Figures; and, like Monf. Jourdain, in Moliere, who had fpoken for forty years in profe, without ever knowing it, many a one ufes metaphorical expreffions to good purpose, without any idea of what a metaphor is. It will not, however, follow thence, that rules are of no fervice. All science arifes from obfervations on practice. Practice has always gone before method and rule; but method and rule have afterwards improved and perfected practice, in every art. We, every day, meet with perfons who fing agreeably, without knowing one note of the gamut. Yet, it has been found of importance to reduce these notes to a scale, and to form an art of mufic; and it would be ridiculous XIV. ridiculous to pretend, that the art is of no ad- LE CT. vantage, because the practice is founded in nature. Propriety and beauty of Speech, are certainly as improveable as the ear or the voice; and to know the principles of this beauty, or the reasons which render one Figure, or one manner of Speech, preferable to another, cannot fail to affist and direct a proper choice. BUT I must observe, in the next place, that, although this part of Style merits attention, and is a very proper object of fcience and rule; although much of the beauty of compofition depends on Figurative Language; yet we must beware of imagining that it depends folely, or even chiefly, upon fuch Language. It is not fo. The great place which the doctrine of Tropes and Figures has occupied in fyftems of rhetoric; the over-anxious care which has been fhewn in giving names to a vast variety of them, and in ranging them. under different claffes, has often led perfons to imagine, that, if their compofition was well befpangled with a number of these ornaments of Speech, it wanted no other beauty; whence has arifen much stiffness and affectation. For it is, in truth, the fentiment or paffion, which lies under the figured expreffion, that gives it any merit. The Figure is only the dress.; the Sentiment is the body and the XIV. LECT. the fubftance. No Figures will render a cold or an empty compofition interefting; whereas, if a fentiment be fublime or pathetic, it can support itself perfectly well, without any borrowed affiftance. Hence feveral of the most affecting and admired paffages of the best authors, are expreffed in the fimpleft language. The following fentiment from Virgil, for instance, makes its way at once to the heart, without the help of any Figure whatever. He is describing an Argive, who falls in battle, in Italy, at a great distance from his native country: Sternitur, infelix, alieno vulnere, cœlumque A fin * "Anthares had from Argos travell❜d`far, Te, dulcis Conjux, te folo in littore fecum, GEORG. IV. XIV. A fingle ftroke of this kind, drawn as by the LECT. very pencil of Nature, is worth a thousand Figures. In the fame manner, the fimple ftyle of Scripture: "He fpoke, and it was "done; he commanded, and it stood faft."— "God faid, Let there be light; and there was "light;" imparts a lofty conception to much greater advantage, than if it had been decorated by the moft pompous metaphors. The fact is, that the ftrong pathetic, and the pure fublime, not only have little dependance on Figures of Speech, but, generally, reject them. The proper region of these ornaments is, where a moderate degree of elevation and paffion is predominant; and there they contribute to the embellishment of discourse, only, when there is a bafis of folid thought and natural sentiment; when they are inferted And fo in that moving prayer of Evander, upon his parting At vos, O Superi! et Divûm tu maxime rector EN. VIII. 572. in |