XCVIII. Spiritualization deserves mention, however shortly; let us be lubricated by Samuel Ferguson. He speaks of a pretty maid; we see a material object turned to an ethereal use:

"She brought us, in a beechen bowl,

Sweet milk that smacked of mountain thyme;
Oat-cake; and such a yellow roll

Of butter-it gilds all my rhyme."

CHAPTER XVI.

FIGURES OF RHETORIC.

PART ELEVENTH.

Irony.-Antiphrasis. - Ironical Permission, or Ironical Command.-Anti-Irony, or Pretended Blame.-MockHeroic.-Personification, or Prosopopeia.

XCIX. IRONY comes before us next: "the dry mock," quoth old Puttenham. When a speaker expresses himself contrary to his thoughts, not with the intention of concealing his real sentiments, but of giving greater force to them, he speaks ironically. You can not but be familiar with the instance of its use by the sublime Elijah; for this figure is stern and indignant, suiting the lips of a great reformer, sent of Heaven to rebuke an oppressive king, an effeminate nation, or a brutal city mob. 1 Kings xviii., 27. Yet it is to the praise of the books of our faith that irony occurs very seldom in them; there is too much of contempt in it; these books have no contempt of man, even when they brand his vices. Eccles. xi., 9; Mark vii., 9. We open Mr. Plunkett's speech in the old Irish Parliament against the proposed union of England and Ireland:

"National pride! Independence of our country! These we are told by the minister are only vulgar topics fitted for the meridian of the mob, but unworthy to be mentioned to such an enlightened assembly as this. They are trinkets and gewgaws fit to catch the fancy of childish and unthinking people like you, sir, or like your predecessors in that chair, but utterly unworthy of the consideration of this House, or of the matured understand

ing of the noble lord who condescends to instruct it. Gracious God! we see a Perry reascending from the tomb, and raising his awful voice to warn us against the surrender of our freedom; and we see that the proud and virtuous feelings which warmed the breast of that aged and venerable man are only calculated to excite the contempt of this young philosopher, who has been transplanted from the nursery to the cabinet to outrage the feelings and understanding of the country."

To renew our study of Demosthenes-a study that characterizes this volume-"A fine pretense!" is an expression not unusual with him when exposing a false assertion. In the Crown, turning to Eschines, he says to him:

"Manifest it is, forsooth, that you are grieved, Æschines, at these events, and that you pity the Thebans; you who have possessions in Bœotia; you who have made their lands your own, thriving on their misery. . . . Any one may see most clearly that he who is most vigilant in defense of his country, and most zealous in his opposition to you, Eschines, and your gang of bought traitors, is after all your best friend, who makes a market for you, making it necessary for the enemy of Athens to pay a good sum for you. But for patriots, and the influence and number and obstinate virtue of patriots, you traitors would not be worth buying. You would bring nothing in the market."

Whittier, of much lyric force, lofty moral and political principle, inveighs against the wickedness of imprisoning a debtor for years:

"What has the gray-hair'd prisoner done?

Has murder stained his hands with gore?
Not so. His crime's a fouler one-

God made the old man poor."

In the tragedy of "Catiline," by Croly, are passages of great power, expressed in the simplest, that is, the truest language. Mark the broken exclamations, the loud, fearless defiance, the fierce Satanic irony:

"Banished from Rome!' What's banish'd, but set free From daily contact of the things I loathe?

'Tried and convicted traitor!' Who says this?
Who'll prove it, at his peril, on my head?

Banish'd! I thank you for't.

It breaks my chain.
I held some slack allegiance till this hour;

But now my sword's my own! Smile on, my lords.

I scorn to count what feelings, wither'd hopes,
Strong provocations, bitter, burning wrongs,

I have within my heart's hot cells shut up.
I leave you in your lazy dignities.

But here I stand and scoff you.

Here I fling

Hatred and full defiance in your face.

Your consul's 'merciful.' For this, all thanks!

He dares not touch a hair of Catiline."

Lord Erskine was told of one who died worth two hundred thousand pounds. He observed

"What a pretty sum to begin the next world with."

A certain bishop was notorious for malice and treachery. Said Sydney Smith:

"The bishop is so like Judas Iscariot, that I now firmly believe in the apostolical succession."

In a word, as satire abounds in irony, we send you to study this figure in our four best American satirical poems: Lowell's "Fable for Critics;" Worth's "American Bards;" "Truth, a New Gift for Scribblers," by Snelling; "The Quacks of Helicon," by Wilmer; all of which will amuse you greatly, and will put a keener edge on your critical powers.

C. In leaving this figure, remark that when it lies in a single word, Antiphrasis is the name. This is the use of a word the reverse of what one means- as in the expression, "The sacred love of gold;" or as when we say of a foolish fellow, "What a perfect Solon he is." Puttenham calls it the "broad flout."

CI. Ironical Permission, or Ironical Command, a figure never before mentioned, is a very fine one, and must be classed as a form of irony. Our attention was first arrested by it in the pages of Scripture. Isa. 1., II; Eccles. xi., 9; Mark xiv., 41. We have sometimes thought that this figure explains the command of Jesus to his disciples to arm themselves. It was so obviously absurd for such a handful of peasants to think of defying the military might of Rome. John xviii., 10; Luke xxii., 36, 38, 49-51. Let the grand lyrics of Isaiah be minutely studied in Lowth's translation. Or open the pages of Byron:

"In vain! in vain! Strike other chords;

Fill high the cup with Samian wine!
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,

And shed the blood of Scio's vine!
Hark! rising to the ignoble call,

How answers each bold bacchanal."

CII. Anti-Irony, or Pretended Blame, is a figure which we have nowhere seen mentioned. Irony lies in pretended praise; this in pretended blame. Our love of blunt, rough honesty of speech makes it popular. There is in Scotland a poem, to which we have already referred, by William Millar, on "Wee Willie Winkie," the Genius of Infant Slumber, who is represented as endeavoring in vain to cause certain baby eyes to wink with sleep:

"Hey, Willie Winkie, are ye comin' ben?

The cat's singin' gay thrums to the sleepin' hen.

The dog's spelder'd on the floor, and disna gie a cheep;
But here's a waukrife laddie that winna fa' asleep.
Ony thing but sleep, ye rogue-glowrin' like the moon;
Rattlin' in an airn jug wi' an airn spoon.

Wearie is the mither that has a stoury wean—

A wee stumpie stoussie that canna rin his lane,

That has a battle aye wi' sleep before he'll close an e'eBut a kiss frae aff his rosy lips gies strength anew to me!"