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separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ our Lord. -St. Paul.

This figure and the one immediately preceding not infrequently appear in the same passage:

So eagerly the fiend

O'er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,
With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way,

And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.-Milton. Alliteration. The recurrence of the same initial letter in emphatic words. An important characteristic of Anglo-Saxon verse, it has never ceased to be present in English poetry, though it has greatly declined in favor. It tends to emphasis by means of repetition, and, by the same means, is an aid to memory:

I was weary of wanderinge

And went me to reste.-Langlande.

Full fathoms five thy father lies.-Shakespeare.

The lisp of leaves, and the ripple of rain.-Swinburne. From my father I inherited only infancy, ignorance, and indigence.-Henry Clay.

Pleonasm. This is the employment of more words than usual. In a skilful hand, it is capable of producing an exquisite effect.

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.-Bible.

The armaments that thunder-strike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals
These are thy toys.-Byron.

Syllepsis. The adapting of the construction to the sense of a word rather than to its gender or number: While Providence supports

Let saints securely dwell;

That Hand which bears all nature up,

Shall guide his children well.-Doddridge.

Enallage. This means the substitution of one part of

speech for another:

I'll queen it no inch farther.-Shakespeare.

Thou losest Here, a better Where to find.-Ibid.

A braying ass did sing most loud and clear.-Cowper.
Whether the charmer sinner it or saint it,

If folly grow romantic, I must paint it.-Pope.

Inversion. Novelty of order. It gives emphasis to a word by placing it in an unusual position. As our illustrations have shown, it is very frequent in English prose and poetry:

Rose a nurse of ninety years,

Set his child upon his knee;

Like summer tempest came her tears:

Sweet my child, I live for thee! — Tennyson.

The Ionians were susceptible, flexile, more characterized by the generosity of modern knighthood than the sternness of ancient heroism. Them, not the past, but the future charmed.—Bulwer.

Metaphor.-A metaphor is the substitution of one idea for another, with the transfer of the word denoting it; as, 'The body is the soul's dark cottage.' Metaphor is thus an approximately general designation for figures of diction.' As we have seen, the points to be noticed in all metaphors are:

1 The literal signification of the term.

2. The figurative, or derivative meaning of the term.

1 Metaphor is from two Greek words, meaning to carry beyond or to transfer. Hence the definition. Believing that, where it accords equally with the eternal fitness of things, that classification is to be preferred which, by its simplicity and consistency, serves best the practical ends of education, we have employed the word metaphor in the extended sense (which is its etymological sense) given it by Aristotle and, recently, by Haven and Farrar - to denote the use of a term in any figurative as distinguished from a literal meaning, whether the figure be founded upon a resemblance between the two objects or upon some other relation. Etymology permits it, utility requires it, logic justifies it. Modern rhetoricians appear to have made it their chief business to branch figures out into a vast number of divisions by nice and vacuous distinctions, which can have no other effect than to fatigue and perplex the reader, without shedding any light upon their nature and use.

3. The relation between the two: (1) Whether it be one of resemblance. (2) Whether it be one of mere connection, as of cause and effect, the whole and its parts, etc.

4. The basis of relation or association: (1) Whether it be matter only; as, 'Sundays are the pillars on which Heaven's palace lies arched.' (2) Whether it be the analogy between matter and spirit — physical properties being applied to the acts of our intellectual and moral nature; as, the light of knowledge, the darkness of ignorance, a ray of hope, weighing a subject. 'A true poet soul, for it needs but to be struck, and the sound it yields will be music.' (3) Whether it be analogy between spirit and matter intellectual and moral properties being applied to physical objects; as, imperious ocean, angry tempest, the sun rejoices, the morning laughs.

Metonymy.—Metonymy is a metaphor which indicates chiefly the relations of

1. Cause and effect:

To my advent'rous song

That with no middle flight intends to soar.-Milton. An attribute of the cause is here applied to the effect. Nursing midnight; drowsy night; pale death.

An attribute of the effect is here applied to the cause. We are reading Virgil.

The cause

writings.

itself is here substituted for the effect

Can gray hairs make folly venerable? - Junius.

The effect is substituted for the cause.

2. Sign and thing signified:

-

old age.

Olive branch, instead of peace; laurel, instead of victory; White

House, for the office of President.

'The pen is mightier than the sword.'

1 From two Greek words, indicating change of name.

3. Container and contents:

The country is jealous of the city.'

'Country' and 'city' are substituted for people.

'Who steals my purse steals trash.'

'The mountains may fail, but the prairies will pour out their wealth.'

The force of this metaphor consists in the use of a particular for a more general form. A special feature is easier to grasp, and is more striking, than the main subject. How much more expressive is red tape than the thing signified,-the difficulties in reaching a result that must pass the routine of office.

Synecdoche.'-Synecdoche is a metaphor that indicates the relation of the whole to its parts. It has various forms, answering to the different kinds of wholes and parts.

1. A part is put for the whole:

‘A sail! a sail! a promised prize to hope.'

'No sheltering roof was nigh.'

'Sail' is here put for ship and 'roof' for house.

2. The whole is put for a part:

'Belinda smiled, and all the world was gay.'
'Cursed be the day when a man child was born.'
3. The attribute is put for the subject:

'And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave.'

'Together with that fair and warlike form

In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did sometimes march.'

The attributes 'beauty,' 'wealth,' and 'majesty,' are put
for the subjects (persons) in whom they inhere.
4. A definite number is put for an indefinite :
'Nine-tenths of the people desire this change.'
'Ten-thousand were on our left.'

1 From the Greek, meaning taken with, or taken together.

'Nine-tenths' for a large majority, and 'ten-thousand' for a great number.

5. An individual is put for the class or species:

'He is a Homer' for 'He is an epic poet.'

'He is a Cicero'

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for 'He is an orator.'

for 'He is a wise man.'

6. The name of the material is put for the thing made:

'The breathing marble and the glowing canvas.'

'His steel gleamed on high.'

'Marble,' 'canvas,' and 'steel' for statue, portrait, and sword.

Cases 3, 4, 5, and 6 are plainly resolvable into the one case of the whole and its parts, or the general and the particular. The subject, for example, is the whole, of which the attribute is a part; the material is the whole, of which the thing made is a part; the species is relatively the whole, of which the individual is a part, etc.

Between metonymy and synecdoche there is no important distinction. The specifications under each may serve, however, to give an opening into the numerous relations by which the mind is assisted to pass from one object to another, and to understand, from the substituted idea, the other meant to be conveyed.

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The philosophy of both figures is, that definite expresmore forcible than the indefinite. He is a Judas,' is more expressive than 'He is a traitor.'

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Periphrasis. The naming of a person or thing, not directly, but in a roundabout way, by means of some characteristic or attendant circumstance; as when, in Hiawatha, September is called

Again

The noon of the falling leaves.

It is the hour when from the boughs
The nightingale's high note is heard.—Byron.

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