These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear. Clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees, whose fruit withers, without fruit, plucked up by the roots: raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. Metaphors are constantly used in common discourse; as, when we say, a warm or cold heart, or that a man is inflamed with love, or worn out with fatigue.

Hayley, in that highly ingenious work, his Essay on Old Maids, has the following simple and consistent metaphor. 'I have sometimes considered the bosom of an old maid as a kind of cell, in which it was intended that the lively bee, affection, should treasure up its collected sweets; but this bee happening to perish, before it could properly settle on the flowers that should afford its wealth, the vacant cell may unluckily become the abode of that drone Indifference, or of the wasp Malignity.'

Extended metaphors are admirably calculated to charm the imagination. The recollection of past happiness is thus elegantly exhibited by the sacred author of the book of JOB. Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me; when I washed my steps in butter, and the rocks poured me out rivers of oil. When the ear heard me, it blessed me; I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. I put on righteousness, and it cloathed me; my judgment was as a robe and a diadem. I was eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, and a father to the poor. A depressed and plaintive state of mind admits the use of these decorations, as exemplified by the following meditation of Wolsey, in Shakspeare's Henry VIII.

Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness.
This is the state of man. To-day puts forth
The tender leaves of hope; to-morrow blossoms,
Aud bears his blushing honours thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely,
His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,
And then he falls, as I do,

2. A simile, or comparison is when the resemblance between two objects is expressed in form, and pursued more fully than the nature of metaphor admits; as when Job says, My days are passed away as the swift ships, as the

eagle that hasteth to her prey. And I have always dreaded the anger of God as waves hanging over my head, and I could not bear the weight of them. Or, when it is said, "the actions of princes are like those great rivers, the "course of which every one beholds, but their springs have "been seen by few." Mr. Harris, in his Hermes, has by a simile, illustrated very happily, the distinction between the powers of sense and imagination in the human mind: "As wax," says he, "would not be adequate to the purpose of signature, if it had not the power to retain, as "well as to receive, the impression; the same holds of the "soul with respect to sense and the imagination. Sense is "its receptive power, and imagination its retentive. Had “it sense without imagination, it would not be as wax, but "as water, where though all impressions be instantly made, "yet as soon as they are made, they are instantly lost." The word imagination is, here, synonimous with memory. Homer, while illustrating the state of the Grecian camp after a battle, introduces the following description of nightscenery, thus beautifully versified by Pope.

As when the moon, resplendent orb of night,
O'er heaven's pure azure sheds her sacred light;
When not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene,
And not a breath disturbs the deep serene;
Around her throne, the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole;
O'er the dark trees a yellow verdure spread,
And tip with silver ev'ry mountain's head.
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies.
The conscious swains rejoicing in the night,
Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light.*

3. An allegory is a chain or continuation of tropes, and more generally of metaphors, and differs from a single trope in the same manner as a cluster on the vine does from only one or two grapes. In the allegory terms are used to signify more than what their literal meaning implies; as, "wealth is the daughter of diligence, and the parent of authority." Allegories have been compared to tracks of light in a discourse that make every thing about them clear and beautiful. There cannot be a more pleas

For a very extensive collection of similes, see Aikin's Essays, Literary and Miscellaneous, 8vo.

ing example than in the four first verses of the xxiii. Psalm The LORD is my shepherd, 1 shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures: he leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, yet will I fear no evil; for thou art with me, thy rod and staff, they comfort me. See also Psalm 1xxx. 8. Judges xiv. 14. Ephes. vi. 10-19. Amidst a host of allegories profusely scattered in the British poets and essayists, two very fine specimens may be found in the Spectator, No. 55, 458, 559, and in the Rambler, No. 3. In a poem called the "Spleen," remarkable for originality of ideas, and felicity of expression, there is the following fine allegory:

Thus, thus I steer my bark, and sail

On even keel with gentle gale;
At helm I make my reaŝon sit,
My crew of passions all submit.
If dark and blust'ring prove some nights,"
Philosophy puts forth her lights;
Experience holds the cautious glass,~
To shun the breakers as I pass,
And frequent throws the wary lead,
To see what dangers may be hid.
Though pleased to see the dolphins play,
I mind my compass and my way,
With store sufficient for relief,
And wisely still prepared to reef:
Not wanting the dispersive bowl
Of clondy weather in the soul,
I make, (may heaven propitious send
Such wind and weather to the end!)
Neither be calmed nor overblown,

Life's voyage to the world unknown.

4. Hyperbole consists in magnifying an object beyond its proper limits. It occurs in all languages, and even makes a part of common conversation: whiter than snow, blacker than a raven, swifter than the wind, and the usual forms of compliment are extravagant hyperboles. In Deut. ix. 1. we read of cities fenced up to heaven. In Job xx. 6. the head of a prosperous wicked man is represented as reaching to the clouds: and in Psalm cvii. 26. mariners in a storm are said to mount up, that is upon the waves, to heaven. Horace, in Ode 16, Book 2. has the following pretty exemplification, thus translated;

Care climbs the vessel's prow,

Sits fast upon the racer's stead;

Her flight outstrips the bounding roe,

And leaves behind the whirlwind's speed. Anon.

5. In an Irony, we speak one thing, and design another, in order to give the greater force and vehemence to our meaning. An irony is distinguished from the real sentiments of the speaker or writer, by the accent, the air, the extravagance of the praise, the character of the person, the nature of the thing, or the vein of the discourse. Numerous instances of this trope occurs in the scriptures. Thus the prophet Elijah speaks in irony to the priests of Baal, Cry aloud, for he is a GOD; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is on a journey, or peradventure he sleeps, and must be awaked. See also Job xii. 2. Eccles. xi. 9. Gen. iii. 22. Mark vii. 9. Abp. Tillotson, when speaking of the Papists, uses the most poignant species of irony; he says, "If it seem good to us to put our necks once more under that yoke which our fathers were not able to bear; if it be really a preferment to a prince to hold the pope's stirrup, and a privilege to be disposed of him at pleasure, and a courtesy to be killed at his command;-if, to pray without understanding;-to obey without reason;-and to be-lieve against sense: if ignorance and implicit faith, and an inquisition be in good earnest, such charming and desirable things; then, welcome Popery, which, wherever thou comest, dost infallibly bring all these wonderful privileges and blessings along with thee." Works iii. 392. 8vo.

6. Synechdoche is a trope in which (1.) the whole is put for a part, (2.) a part for the whole, (3.) a general name for a particular one, and (4.) a particular name for a general one, (1.) In Luke xvi. 23. Lazarus is said to be in Abraham's bosom; here man is put for the soul of man: and at other times, man signifies the body only, as in Gen. iii. 19. Till thou return to the ground, that is thy body. (2.) The head is used to signify the man, the pole, the heavens, the point, the sword, a roof, the house, &c. See also, Isaiah vii. 2. Matt. viii. 8. (3.) Our Lord commands his apostles, Mark xvi. 15. To go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature, that is, to all mankind. (4.) In Ps. xlvi. 9. the Almighty is said to break the bow, and cut the spear in sunder, and to burn the cha

riot in the fire; that is, God destroys all the weapons of war, and blesses the world with peace. Again in Dan. xii. 14. Many of them that sleep in the dust, shall awake: some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Here the word many is put for all.

7. A Metonymy changes the names of things which are naturally, but not essentially united. Thus when Mars is put for war, and Ceres for corn, they lose their personal sense, and stand for the effects of which those deities are said to be the cause. 2 Kings, iv. 40. There is death in the pot, that is, a poisonous herb that will cause death. See Luke xvi. 29. Numb. xxxii. 23. Gen. xxxv. 23. Exod. xv. 2. Matt. xxvi. 27. Mark i. 33. Death is called pale, because it gives a pallid hue to the countenance. Youth is called gay, because it produces gaiety. Anger is called rash, because it is the cause of rashness.

§ 2. Figures.

1. By Interrogation, we express the emotion of our minds, and infuse an ardour and energy into our discourses. There are many beautiful instances of this figure in the Sacred Writings. As in Matt. xi. 7. What went ye out in'to the wilderness to see? a reed shaken with the wind? but what went ye out to see? a man clothed in soft raiment? Behold they that wear soft clothing, are in kings' houses. But what went ye out to see? a Prophet? yea, I say unto you and more than a prophet. See also, John vi. 52. Judges v. 28, 30. Rom. x. 6, 7. Psalm cxxxix. 17. viii. 4. Gen. xii. 18. 2 Sam. vi. 20. Jer xxii. 23. Lam. ii. 13. and 1 Corinth. ix. 1. Milton, in his Paradise Lost, b. ix. v. 686-730, has wonderfully heightened the beauty of Satan's address to Eve by a crowd of interrogations. Thomson in his Summer, verse 67, has also used this figure very successfully

Matt. xvii. 17.

2. Prosopopeia, or Personification, is a figure which consists in describing good, or bad qualities of the mind, or the passions and appetites of human nature, as real and distinct persons. It clothes imaginary beings with corporeal forms, or endows them with speech and action; introduces an absent person as speaking, or one who is dead, as if he were alive and present; and makes rocks, woods, rivers, temples, and other inanimate beings, assume the

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