The paths of their channels are diminished,
They ascend in vapour, and are lost.
Look for them, ye troops of Tema;

Ye travellers of Sheba, expect them earnestly.

They made no haste; because they depended on them:
They came thither, then were they confounded."*

Job vi. 15-20. "In the fifth line the word 127 is one of those which only once occur in the Scripture. In the Arabic and Chaldee the proper force of the verb 27 is to flow, to flow off, or to overflow: thus the sense will be, In the time in which they flow, or flow off; that is, are dissolved by the melting of the ice."-H.

In the 20th verse it appears one should read 1702, with the Syr. and Chald.-Author's Note.

LECTURE XIII.

OF THE PROSOPOPŒIA, OR PERSONIFICATION.

Two kinds of Personification: when a character is assigned to fictitious or inanimate objects; and when a probable speech is attributed to a real person-Of fictitious and inanimate characters; of real characters-The Prosopopoeia of the mother of Sisera (in the song of Deborah) explained: also the triumphal song of the Israelites concerning the death of the king of Babylon (in Isaiah), which consists altogether of this figure, and exhibits it in all its different forms.

*

THE last in order of those figures which I proposed to treat of, as being most adapted to the parabolic style, is the Prosopopoeia, or Personification. Of this figure there are two kinds: one, when action and character are attributed to fictitious, irrational, or even inanimate objects; the other, when a probable but fictitious speech is assigned to a real character. The former evidently partakes of the nature of the metaphor, and is by far the boldest and most daring of that class of figures. Seasonably introduced, therefore, it has uncommon force and expression; and in no hands whatever is more successful in this respect than in those of the

* The passions of resentment and love have been very accurately traced by some late writers on the human mind, into the senses of pain and pleasure: the one arising from the habitual inclination to remove what is hurtful; the other, from that of possessing what is a source of grateful sensations, and a mean of increasing pleasure. (See Hartley on Man, and a Dissertation prefixed to King's Origin of Evil.) The strong expression of these passions is, however, chiefly directed to rational, or at least to animated beings; but this is the effect of reason and habit. The passions are still the same, and will frequently display themselves in opposition to reason. A child turns to beat the ground, or the stone, that has hurt him, (see Lord Kames' Elements of Criticism); and most men feel some degree of affection even for the old inanimate companions of their happiness. From these dispositions originates the figure which is the great and distinguishing ornament of poetry, the Prosopopœia. This figure is nearly allied to the metaphor, and still more to the metonymy; it is to the latter what the allegory is to the metaphor. Thus, when we say, "Youth and beauty shall be laid in the dust," for persons possessing youth and beauty, it is hard to determine whether it be a metonymy or a prosopopoeia. Lyric poetry, in which the imagination seems to have the fullest indulgence, and which abounds with strong figures, is most favourable to personification.-T.

Hebrew writers; I may add also, that none more frequently or more freely introduce it.

In the first place, then, with respect to fictitious characters, the Hebrews have this in common with other poets, that they frequently assign character and action to an abstract or general idea, and introduce it in a manner acting, and even speaking, as upon the stage. In this, while they equal the most refined writers in elegance and grace, they greatly excel the most sublime in force and majesty. What, indeed, can be conceived apter, more beautiful, or more sublime, than that personification of Wisdom which Solomon so frequently introduces? exhibiting her not only as the director of human life and morals, as the inventor of arts, as the dispenser of wealth, of honour, and of real felicity; but as the immortal offspring of the omnipotent Creator, and as the eternal associate in the divine counsels:

"When he prepared the heavens, I was present; When he described a circle on the face of the deep: When he disposed the atmosphere above;

When he established the fountains of the deep:

When he published his decree to the sea,

That the waters should not pass their bound;
When he planned the foundations of the earth:
Then was I by him as his offspring;

And I was daily his delight;

I rejoiced continually before him :

I rejoiced in the habitable part of his earth,
And my delights were with the sons of men."‡

How admirable is that celebrated personification of the divine attributes by the Psalmist! how just, elegant, and splendid does it appear, if applied only according to the literal sense, to the restoration of the Jewish nation from the Babylonish captivity! But if interpreted as relating to that sublimer, more sacred and mystical sense, which is not obscurely sha

*There is a very animated personification of this kind in one of Dr Ogden's sermons, though by some it may perhaps be thought too bold for that species of composition." Truth," says that elegant and sublime writer, "is indeed of an awful presence, and must not be affronted with the rudeness of direct opposition; yet will she sometimes condescend to pass for a moment unregarded, while your respects are paid to her sister Charity." That of Bishop Sherlock, which our Author has quoted in his admirable Introduction to English Grammar, "Go to your natural religion, lay before her Mahomet and his disciples," &c. is well known, and is one of the finest examples of this figure I have ever seen.-T.

Prov. viii. 27-31.

dowed under the ostensible image, it is certainly uncommonly noble and elevated, mysterious and sublime:

66

Mercy and Truth are met together;

Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other."*

There are many passages of a similar kind, exquisitely imagined, and, from the boldness of the fiction, extremely forcible. Such is that in Habakkuk, of the Pestilence marching before JEHOVAH when he comes to vengeance:† that in Job, in which Destruction and Death affirm of Wisdom, that her fame only had come to their ears: in fine, (that I may not be tedious in quoting examples), that tremendous image in Isaiah, of Hades § extending her throat, and opening her insatiable and immeasurable jaws.||

• Psal. lxxxv. 11. † Hab. iii. 5.

Job xxviii. 22. § Isa. v. 14.

|| I have not observed, even in the Hebrew poetry, a bolder use of this figure, than in a passage of Tacitus, An. 16. 21. Trucidatis tot insignibus viris, ad postremum Nero Virtutem ipsam exscindere concupivit, interfecto Thrasea, &c. "After the slaughter of so many excellent men, Nero meditated at length the extirpation of Virtue herself by the sacrifice of Thrasea," &c.

In the opening of Collins's Ode to Mercy is a noble example of the prosopopœia :

"Thou, who sitt'st a smiling bride,

By Valour's arm'd and awful side," &c.

But the whole compass of English poetry cannot furnish a more beautiful specimen than the following:

"Loud howls the storm! the vex'd Atlantic roars!

Thy Genius, Britain, wanders on its shores!

Hears cries of horror wafted from afar,

The groans of anguish, 'mid the shrieks of war!
Hears the deep curses of the Great and Brave
Sigh in the wind, and murmur in the wave!
O'er his damp brow the sable crape he binds,
And throws his victor-garland to the winds."

Miss Seward's Monody on Major André. How different are these instances from the frigid attempts of inferior writers! The following personification is completely ridiculous. It is, however, extracted from a poem, which has been highly extolled by one who calls himself a Critic :

"Invidious Grave, how dost thou rend in sunder

Whom love has knit, and sympathy made one!"-The Grave, a Poem. It is a happy thing, that as there are poets of all degrees, there are also critics of taste and judgment exactly equal and correspondent to them.-Par nobile! The picture of a Grave rending a thing in sunder, can only be matched by the following passage from the same incomparable performance :

"But tell us, why this waste,

Why this ado in carthing up a carcass
That's fall'n into disgrace, and to the sense

Smells horrible? Ye undertakers! tell us"

There is also another most beautiful species of personification, which originates from a well-known Hebrew idiom, and on that account is very familiar to us; I allude to that form of expression, by which the subject, attribute, accident, or effect of any thing, is denominated the son. Hence, in

the Hebrew poetry, nations, regions, peoples, are brought upon the stage as it were in a female character:

"Descend, and sit in the dust, O virgin, daughter of Babylon; Sit on the bare ground without a throne, O daughter of the

Chaldeans:*

For thou shalt no longer be called the tender and the delicate." +

"Where are the mighty thunderbolts of war?

Alas! how slim, dishonourably slim !”

"Now tame and humble, like a child that's whipp'd,
Shake hands with dust," &c.

"Perhaps some hackney hunger-bitten scribbler
Insults thy memory.

"Here the lank-sided miser-worst of felons!
Who meanly stole (discreditable shift!)

From back and belly too their proper cheer,
Lies cheaply lodg'd."

"O that some courteous ghost would blab it out,
What 'tis ye are," &c.

-"O great Man-cater!

Whose every day is carnival, not sated yet!
Like one, whole days defrauded of his meals,

On whom lank Hunger lays his skinny hand."

No wonder the above Critic could discover nothing sublime in Virgil and the Scriptures.-T.

tress.

"Sitting on the ground was a posture that denoted deep misery and disThe prophet Jeremiah has given it the first place among many indications of sorrow, in that elegant description of the distress of his country, Lam. ii. 8. The elders of the daughter of Sion sit on the ground, they are silent,' &c. We find Judea, says Mr Addison, (on Medals, dial. ii.), on several coins of Vespasian and Titus, in a posture that denotes sorrow and captivity.—I need not mention her sitting on the ground, because we have already spoken of the aptness of such a posture to represent extreme affliction. I fancy the Romans might have an eye to the customs of the Jewish nation, as well as those of their country, in the several marks of sorrow they have set on this figure. The Psalmist describes the Jews lamenting their captivity in the same pensive posture: By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered thee, O Sion.' But what is more remarkable, we find Judea represented as a woman in sorrow sitting on the ground, in a passage of the prophet that foretells the very captivity recorded on this medal."-See Bishop Lowth's Notes on Isaiah, c. iii. v. 26.

Isa. xlvii. 1, &c.