count I am afterwards to give of them. Rhetoricians commonly divide them into two great claffes; figures of words, and figures of thought. The former, 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 destroy the figure. Thus, in the instance I gave before, "Light ariseth to the upright in darkness ;" the trope confifts in "light and darkness," being not meant literally, but fubftituted for comfort and adversity, on account of fome refemblance or analogy which they are supposed to bear to thefe conditions of life. The other class, termed figures of thought, fuppofes the words to be used in their proper and literal meaning, and the figure to confift in the turn of the thought; as is the cafe in exclamations, interrogations, apoftrophes, and comparifons; where, though you vary the words that are used, or tranflate them from one language into another, you may, neverthelefs, ftill preferve the fame figure in the thought. This distinction, 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 ftyle: and, perhaps, figures of imagination, and figures of paffion, might be a more ufeful diftribution of the fubject. But, without infifting on any artificial divifions, it will be more useful, that I enquire into the origin and nature of figures. Only, before I proceed to this, there are two general obfervations which it may be proper to premife.

The first is, concerning the use of rules with reVol. I.

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fpect to figurative language. I admit, that perfons may both speak and write with propriety, who know not the names of any of the figures of speech, nor ever ftudied any rules relating to them. Nature, as was before obferved, dictates the use of figures; and, like monf. Jourdain, in Moliere, who had spoken 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 fcience 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 persons who Afing 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 to pretend, that the art is of no advantage, 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 reafons which render one figure, or one manner of fpeech, preferable to another, cannot fail to affift 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 muft 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 shown 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 fpeech, 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 fentiment is the body and the fubftance. No figures will render a cold or an empty compofition interesting; whereas, if a fentiment be fublime or pathetic, it can fupport itself perfectly well, without any borrowed affiftance. Hence feveral of the most affecting and admired paffages of the best authors, are expressed in the simplest language. The following fentiment from Virgil, for inftance,. 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

Afpicit, et dulces moriens reminifcitur Argos*..

* Anthares had from Argos travell'd far,
"Alcides' friend, and brother of the war;
"Now falling, by another's wound, his eyes
"He cafts to heaven, on Argos thinks, and dies.”

In this translation, much of the beauty of the original is loft. "On Argos thinks, and dies," is by no means equal to "dul❝ces moriens reminifcitur Argos:" "As he dies, he remem "bers his beloved Argos."-It is indeed obfervable, that in most of those tender and pathetic paffages, which do fo much honour to Virgil, that great poet expreffes himself with the utmoft fimplicity; as,

Te, dulcis conjux, te folo in littore fecum,
Te veniente die, te decedente canebat.

GEORG. IV.

And fo in that moving prayer of Evander, upon his parting with his fon Pallas :

At vos, O fuperi ! et Divum tu maxime rector
Jupiter, Arcadii quæfo miferefcite regis,

A fingle stroke of this kind, drawn as by the very pencil of nature, is worth a thoufand figures. In the fame manner, the fimple ftyle of fcripture: "He fpoke, and it was done; he commanded, and "it ftood fat."-"God faid, let there be light; and "there was light ;" imparts a lofty conception to much greater advantage, than if it had been de corated by the most pompous metaphors. The fact is, that the strong pathetic, and the pure fublime, not only have little dependence on figures of speech, but generally reject them. The proper region of thefe ornaments is, where a moderate degree of elevation and paffion is predominant; and there they contribute to the embellishment of difcourfe, only, when there is a bafis of folid thought and natural fentiment; when they are inferted in their proper place; and when they rife, of themselves, from the fubject, without being fought after.

Having premised these obfervations, I proceed to give an account of the origin and nature of figures; principally of fuch as have their dependence on language; including that numerous tribe, which the rhetoricians call tropes.

At the firft rife of language, men would begin with giving names to the different objects which they difcerned, or thought of. This nomenclature would, at the beginning, be very narrow. Ac cording as mens's ideas multiplied, and their acquaintance with objects increased, their ftock of

Et patrias audite preces. Si numina veftra
Incolumem Pallanta mihi, fi fata refervant,
Si vifurus eum vivo, et venturus in unum,
Vitam oro; patiar quemvis durare laborem !
Sin aliquem infandum cafum, fortuna, minaris,
Nunc, O nunc liceat crudelem abrumpere vitam !
Dum cure ambiguæ dum fpes incerta futuri;
Dum te, chare puer ! mea fera et fola voluptas!
Amplexu teneo; gravior ne nuncius aures
Vulneret-

EN. VIII. 572.

ת

names and words would increase alfo. But to the infinite variety of objects and ideas, no language is adequate. No language is fo copious, as to have a feparate word for every separate idea. Men naturally fought to abridge this labour of multiplying words in infinitum; and, in order to lay lefs burden on their memories, made one word, which they had already appropriated to a certain idea or object, ftand alfo for fome other idea or object; between which and the primary one, they found, or fancied, fome relation. Thus, the prepofition, in, was originally invented to exprefs the circumftance of place: "The man was killed in the wood." In progrefs of time, words were wanted to exprefs men's being connected with certain conditions of fortune, or certain fituations of mind; and fome refemblance, or analogy, being fancied between these, and the place of bodies, the word, in, was employed to exprefs men's be ing fo circumstanced; as, one's being in health or in fickness, in profperity or in adverfity, in joy or in grief, in doubt, or in danger, or in fafety. Here we fee this prepofition, in, plainly affuming a tropical fignification, or carried off from its original meaning, to fignify fomething elfe, which relates to, or resembles it.

Tropes of this kind abound in all languages; and are plainly owing to the want of proper words. The operations of the mind and affections, in particular, are, in moft languages, defcribed by words taken from fenfible objects. The reafon is plain, The names of fenfible objects were, in all languages, the words moft early introduced; and were, by degrees, extended to thofe mental objects, of which men had more obfcure conceptions, and to which they found it more difficult to affign diftinct names. They borrowed, therefore, the name of fome fenfible idea, where their imagination found