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Language, invented for the communication of thought, would be imperfect, if it were not expressive even of the flighter propenfities and more delicate feelings. But language cannot remain so imperfect, among a people who have received any polish; because language is regulated by internal feeling, and is gradually so improved as to express whatever passes in the mind. Thus, for example, a sword in the hand of a coward, is, in poetical diction, termed a coward fword: the expreffion is fignificative of an internal operation; for the mind, in paffing from the agent to its instrument, is disposed to extend to the latter the properties of the former. Governed by the fame principle, we say listening fear, by extending the attribute listening of the man who liftens, to the paffion with which he is moved. In the expreffion, bold deed, or audax facinus, we extend to the effect, what properly belongs to the caufe. But not to waste time by making a commentary upon every expreffion of this kind, the best way to give a complete view of the subject, is to exhibit

exhibit a table of the different connections that may give occafion to this figure. And in viewing this table, it will be observed, that the figure can never have any grace but where the connections are of the most intimate kind.

1. An attribute of the cause expressed as an attribute of the effect.

Audax facinus.

Of yonder fleet a bold discovery make.

An impious mortal gave the daring wound.

To my adventrous song,

That with no middle flight intends to foar.

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3. An effect expressed as an attribute of

the caufen

Jovial wine, Giddy brink, Drowsy night, Musing midnight, Panting height, Aftonish'd thought, Mournful gloom.

Casting a dim religious light.

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Suit to strMilton, Comus.

And the merry bells ring round,

And the jocund rebecks found.

Milton, Allegro.

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4. An attribute of a fubject bestowed

upon one of its parts or members.

Longing arms.

It was the nightingale, and not the lark,

That pierc'd the fearful hollow of thine ear.

4

Romeo and Juliet, act 3. Sc. 7.

Oh, lay by

Those most ungentle looks and angry weapons;

Unless you mean my griefs and killing fears

Should stretch me out at your relentless feet.

Fair Penitent, aft 3.

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sooden And ready now ライジングカ To stoop with wearied wing, and willing feet, On the bare outside of this world.

Paradise Lost, b. 3.

5. A quality of the agent given to the instrument with which it operates.

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Why peep your coward swords half out their shells?

6. An attribute of the agent given to the subject upon which it operates.

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When sapless age, and weak unable limbs,
Should bring thy father to his drooping chair.

Shakespear.

By art, the pilot through the boiling deep
And howling tempest, steers the fearless ship.

VOL. III.

Iliad xxiii. 385.

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Then,

Then, nothing loath, th' enamour'd fair he led, And funk transported on the conscious bed.

Odyff. viii. 337.

A stupid moment motionless she stood.

Summer, 1. 1336.

8. A circumstance connected with a fub

ject, expressed as a quality of the subject.

Breezy summit.

'Tis ours the chance of fighting fields to try.

Iliadi. 301.

Oh! had I dy'd before that well-fought wall.

Odyff. v. 395.

From this table it appears, that the expreffing an effect as an attribute of the cause, is not so agreeable as the opposite expreffion. The defcent from cause to effect is natural and easy: the opposite direc tion resembles retrograde motion *. Panting beight, for example, astonish'd thought, are strained and uncouth expreffions, which

See chap

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