military powers of his heroes.

But the thunder

bolt falls indiscriminately upon the head of friend or of foe. The Scipios were thunderbolts only to the enemies of Rome.

When the western empire was overrun by Attila, king of the Huns, the Romans called him the Scourge of God.

Here are two analogies between moral and physical nature. A scourge is an instrument, used for the punishment of offenders. Hence, in calling the king of the Huns a scourge, they considered him as the instrument to punish their own crimes. But he was the scourge of God; of the Almighty Governor of the universe. The instrument then was terrible in proportion to the power of him, by whom it was employed. The scourge too is an odious weapon, implying the mastery of the being, by whom it is used, and the helpless inferiority of the sufferer under it. But in the two following lines from the Dunciad,

Jacob, the scourge of grammar, mark with awe;

Nor less revere him, blunderbuss of law;

Jacob

the three kinds of association are united. is a scourge, like Attila; an odious instrument of punishment. But he is the scourge of grammar, operating only upon children; the weapon of petty

punishment for petty transgression.

Jacob the

scourge is as ridiculous, as Attila the scourge is terrific.

But in the next line, to shower still more contempt upon Jacob, the association of sounds is introduced. Jacob was the blunderbuss of law. To understand the force of these associations we must know, that Jacob was one of the writers, who undertook to convince the public, that Pope was a fool, who could not write English, and had no poetical genius. Jacob had published a grammar,

Το

and a law dictionary in a large folio volume. make him therefore the scourge of grammar is a ludicrous image, disgracing him by the nature of the weapon. But the blunderbuss of law brings in a new association. A blunderbuss is a kind of musket, made for firing at random; very heavy,

and of little use. The application of the term itself was already severe, by force of this analogy. But there is a second sense, in which the word is In this sense it is used, signifying a blockhead. so mean and vulgar, that Pope could not have ventured nakedly to apply it. The apparent sense, in which the verse employs it, is figuratively for the firc-arm. And under the decoration of this figure the poet knew, that the imagination of the reader

would of itself apply the other meaning as effectually, as if he had dared openly to express it.

Such then is the general doctrine of figurative language; which originated first from the necessity of communicating ideas of reflection by means of the images of sensation; founded upon a natural association of ideas, and upon the analogies between the properties of spirit, of matter, and of sounds; and afterwards greatly multiplied by the charm, which the discovery and display of these analogies possess over the minds of men. From these principles we are to deduce a few rules for our direction in the management of figures, and to consider more particularly some of the figures most frequently used by orators and poets. This however must be the occupation of another day.

LECTURE XXXI.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE.

HAVING in my last lecture considered the origin and character of figurative language in general, its foundation upon the association of ideas, and upon the analogies between matter and spirit, between one material substance and another, and between sounds, it will now be proper to consider the rules of practice in composition, which naturally result from these principles.

The purpose of figurative speech is to address the eye through the medium of the imagination. The sight, as has been remarked by philosophical observers, is the most perfect and most delightful of all our senses. As an inlet of ideas to the mind, its capacities are greater than those of all the