i

Things often receive new beauty by being described at greater length, or are made more impressive by being presented in a new light.

Euphemism.-Really a variety of the preceding figure. It is a softening down, by an agreeable name, of what is disagreeable, base or bad:

Convey him to the tower.

Convey! Oh Good! Conveyers are you all.— Shakespeare.
Sleep that no pain shall wake,

Night that no moon shall break,

Till joy shall overtake

Her perfect calm.- Rossetti.

Pun. The pun is the use of the same word in different senses, or words of similar sound in opposite relations. Thus Satan, standing in front of concealed artillery, loaded and ready for action, with the opposing armies of Heaven in battle array, addresses himself to his followers, under pretense of making overtures of peace to the

enemy:

Heav'n witness thou anon, while we discharge
Freely our part; ye who appointed stand,

Do as you have in charge, and briefly touch

What we propound, and loud that all may hear.

The pun is in most cases a form of metaphor.

Irony.' Irony is the use of words which literally express the contrary of what is meant. Thus, Job's address to his friends:

No doubt ye are the people and wisdom will die with you. Also, Elijah's reproof of the prophets of Baal, who were appealing in vain to their god for some demonstration of his power and presence:

Cry aloud, for he is a god! Either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is on a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth and must be awaked!'

1 From the Greek, indicating a dissembler in speech.

So Satan, marking the confusion into which the enemy were thrown by the unexpected discharge of the long and hollow engines,' calls out:

O friends, why come not on these victors proud?
Erewhile they fierce were coming; and when we,
To entertain them fair with open front

And breast (what could we more?) propounded terms
Of composition, straight they changed their minds,
Flew off, and into strange vagaries fell,

As they would dance, yet for a dance they seem'd

Somewhat extravagant and wild!

Allegory.'- An allegory is a narrative or description whose real meaning is different from its apparent meaning. Thus, in the 80th Psalm, we find the description of a vine, but the vine is so described that the reader soon perceives that the writer meant to have him think about a nation:

'Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt. Thou hast cast out the heathen and planted it. Thou preparedst room for it, and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land. The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars. She sent out her boughs unto the sea, and her branches unto the river. Why hast thou then broken down her hedges, so that all they which pass by do pluck her? The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it. Return, we beseech thee. O God of hosts, look down from Heaven, and behold and visit this vine.'

The greatest allegories in the English language are Spenser's Faerie Queene, in which the virtues and vices. are made to act out, as persons, their nature, in a series of supposed adventures; and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, in which the spiritual progress of the Christian from this world to the next is represented by the story of a pilgrim in search of a distant country, which he reaches after many trials and struggles.

1 From the Greek, meaning what speaks another thing.

Other fine examples are Chaucer's House of Fame, Addison's Vision of Mirza, Hawthorne's Celestial Railroad, and Poe's Raven, in the last of which the poet, or speaker, is represented as having lost his early love, Lenore (innocence or purity), and is visited by a raven (remorse). Allegory is the foundation of much emblematic art notably of that famous series of pictures entitled 'The Voyage of Life.'

The Parable is a form of allegory in which some religious truth is exhibited by means of supposed facts from nature and human life.

The Fable is a short allegory in which animals and inanimate objects are endowed with human attributes, and are made to speak and act in such a way as to convey some useful lesson.

Personification.'-Personification is the ascription of human feeling and intelligence to irrational and inanimate objects. It is not enough that the object is endowed with life merely, as some rhetoricians state it, it must have a personal life. Of this there are three degrees:

1. The lowest degree consists in ascribing some simple. quality of persons to inanimate things; as, a raging tempest, a pitiless stone, a furious dart, a smiling morn. This form is produced by adjectives and pro

nouns.

2. A higher degree consists in ascribing to the object personal action, a form produced by verbs:

The bridegroom sea

Is toying with the shore, his wedded bride;
Retires a pace, to see how fair she looks,

Then, proud, runs up to kiss her.-Alexander Smith.

3. The highest degree ascribes to the object the power

of speech

i From the Latin persona, person, and facere, to make.

Go, lovely rose,

Tell her that wastes her time and me,

That now she knows,

When I resemble her to thee,

How sweet and fair she seems to be.- Waller.

As the nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and verbs are transferred from their literal applications, this figure, like allegory, is of course based upon metaphor. Its force and beauty arise from its exhibiting lifeless things in human form, fancifully endowed with human feeling and purpose. To confer personal life upon an inanimate object is the surest means of awakening our love or hatred toward it, and the tendency to do it is natural to every period of life. The child vents his anger upon the stone against which he has stumbled; and an older person, who does not strike it, feels an impulse to blame it. The ancient Greek regarded all outward objects as instinct with life. Tree, stream, cloud, and star were believed to possess human sensibility and intelligence.

The figures thus far noticed may be regarded as the Figures of Diction; that is, they arise chiefly from the figurative application of words. The third degree of personification may, perhaps with greater propriety, be regarded as a Figure of Thought.

Figures of diction are sometimes called tropes.' The term metaphor is then limited to such figures as are based upon the one relation of resemblance; as, a raging tempest, meaning such a tempest as, in its effects, resembles a raging man. 'He is a lion 'he is like a lion. The designation of the figure is of little consequence, however. The important point to be remembered is, that the figurative use may at one time be based upon the relation of resemblance; at another, upon that of cause and effect, the

1 There is no essential difference between the etymology of the trope and that of metaphor. Both indicate the turning of a word from its primary meaning.

whole and its parts, subject and attribute, genus and species, etc.

Simile. A simile is an explicit statement of resemblance between two essentially different objects. Thus, 'The soldiers stood like statues, unmoved by the cannon's roar.' Also,

In my spirit doth thy spirit shine,

L As shines the sunbeam in a drop of dew.'

In every such statement two parts are to be carefully distinguished the object to be illustrated, and the illustrative object. The illustrative part — usually introduced by like or as is regarded as the simile.

The student must not commit the error of thinking that every clause introduced by as or like is a simile. The objects compared must belong to different classes- must be dissimilar in their general nature. A comparison between two individuals of the same species (as between two persons) may afford an example, but cannot constitute a simile. Compare, 'She is as short and dark as her brother,' with 'She is as short and dark as a mid-winter day.' The fact of comparison must be the test, rather than the introductory like or as, which is not always expressed. Thus,

'We have often thought that the public mind resembles that of the sea when the tide is rising. Each successive wave rushes forward, breaks and rolls back; but the great flood is steadily coming on.'

The simile becomes a metaphor when the resemblance is taken for granted - when one object is applied to the other directly. We no longer say, 'He was like a fox in the council,' but, 'He was a fox in the council.' A metaphor based upon resemblance is thus an implicit simile.

Allusion.-A historical or literary reference, more or less distinct. A thing supposed by the speaker to be well known to his hearers may be advantageously alluded to,