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Haft thou left thy blue courfe in heaven, golden-hair'd fon of the sky! The weft hath opened its gates; the bed of thy repofe is there. The waves gather to behold thy beauty they lift their trembling heads; they fee thee lovely in thy fleep; but they fhrink away with fear. Relt in thy fhadowy cave, O Sun! and let thy return be in joy. Fingal.

Daughter of Heaven, fair art thou! the filence of thy face is pleafant. Thou comeft forth in lovelinefs: the ftars attend thy blue fteps in the eaft. The clouds rejoice in thy prefence, O Moon! and brighten their dark-brown fides. Who is like thee in heaven, daughter of the night? The ftars are afhamed in thy prefence, and turn afide their fparkling eyes. Whither doft thou retire from thy course, when the darknefs of thy countenance grows? Haft thou thy hall like Offian? Dwelleft thou in the fhadow of grief? Have thy fifters fallen from heaven? and are they who rejoiced with thee at night no more Yes, they have fallen, fair light; and often doft thou retire to mourn.-But thou thyfelf fhalt, one night, fall; and leave thy blue path in heaven. The ftars will then lift their heads: they, who in thy prefence were afhamed, will rejoice.

Fingal.

This figure, like all others, requires an agitation of mind. In plain narrative, as, for example, in giving the genealogy of a family, it has no good effect; Fauno Picus pater; ifque parentem Te, Saturne, refert; tu fanguinis ultimus auctor. Eneid, vii. 48.

SECT. III.

Hyperbole.

IN this figure, by which an object is magni

fied or diminished beyond truth, effect of the foregoing principle.

we have another An object of an

uncommon

uncommon fize, either very great of its kind or very little, ftrikes us with furprife; and this emotion produces a momentary conviction that the object is greater or less than it is in reality:* the fame effect, precifely, attends figurative grandeur or littleness: and hence the hyperbole, which expreffes that momentary conviction. A writer, taking advantage of this natural delufion, warms his defcription greatly by the hyperbole and the reader, even in his cooleft moments, relishes the figure, being fenfible that it is the operation of nature upon a glowing fancy.

It cannot have efcaped obfervation, that a writer is commonly more fuccefsful in magnifying by a hyperbole than in diminishing. The reafon is, that a minute object contracts the mind, and fetters its pow er of imagination; but that the mind, dilated and inflamed with a grand object, moulds objects for its gratification with great facility. Longinus, with reIpect to a diminishing hyperbole, quotes the following ludicrous thought from a comic poet: "He was owner of a bit of ground no larger than a Lacedemonian letter." But, for the reafon now given, the hyperbole has by far the greater force in magnifying objects; of which take the following examples:

For all the land which thou feeft, to thee will I give it, and to thy feed for ever. And I will make thy feed as the duft of the earth; fo that if a man can number the duft of the earth, then fhall thy feed alfo be numbered.

Genefis xiii. 15. 16.

Illa vel intactæ fegetis per fumma volaret
Gramina: nec teneras curfu læfiffet ariftas.

Eneid, vii. 8c8.

Atque

* See Chap. 8.

+ Chap. 21. of his Treatife on the Sublime.

Atque imo barathri ter gurgite vaftos
Sorbet in abruptum fluctus, rurfufque fub auras
Erigit alternos, et fidera verberat undâ.

Eneid, iii. 421.

Horificis juxta tonat Ætna ruinis,

Interdumque atram prorumpit ad æthera nubem,
Turbine fumantem piceo et candente favilla :

Autollitque globos flammarum, et fidera lambit.

Eneid, iii. 571.

Speaking of Polyphemus

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Now fhield with fhield, with helmet helmet clos'd,
To armour armour, lance to lance oppos'd.
Hoft against hoft with fhadowy fquadrons drew,
The founding darts in iron tempefts flew,
Victors and vanquish'd join promifcuous cries,
And thrilling fhouts and dying groans arife;
With ftreaming blood the flipp'ry fields are dy'd,
And flaughter'd heroes fwell the dreadful tide.

Iliad iv. 508.

The following may also pass, though far stretched.

E conjungendo à temerario ardire
Eftrema forza, e infaticabil lena
Vien che fi'impetuofo il ferro gire,
Che ne trema la terra, e'l ciel balena.

Gierufalem, cant. 6. ft. 46.

Quintilian is fenfible that this figure is natural : "For," fays he, "not contented with truth, we are naturally

L. 8. cap. 6. in fin.

naturally inclined to augment or diminish beyond it; and for that reafon the hyperbole is familiar even among the vulgar and illiterate :" and he adds, very justly, "That the hyperbole is then proper, when the fubject of itself exceeds the common meafure." From these premifes, one would not expect the following inference, the only reafon he can find for justifying this figure of fpeech, "Conceditur enim amplius dicere, quia dici quantum eft, non poteft : meliufque ultra quam citra ftat oratio." (We are indulged to fay more than enough, because we cannot fay enough; and it is better to be above than under.) In the name of wonder, why this childish reasoning, after obferving that the hyperbole is founded on human nature? I could not refift this perfonal ftroke of criticifm; intended not against our author, for no human creature is exempt from error, but against the blind veneration that is paid to the ancient claffic writers, without diftinguishing their blemishes from their beauties.

Having examined the nature of this figure, and the principle on which it is erected, I proceed, as in the first section, to the rules by which it ought to be governed. And, in the first place, it is a capital fault, to introduce an hyperbole in the defcription of any thing ordinary or familiar; for in fuch a cafe, it is altogether unnatural, being deftitute of furprife, its only foundation. Take the following inftance, where the fubject is extremely familiar, viz. fwimming to gain the fhore after a fhipwreck.

I faw him beat the furges under him,

And ride upon their backs; he trode the water;
Whofe enmity he flung afide, and breafled
The furge molt fwoln that met him his bold head
'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oard
Himfelf with his good arms, in lufty strokes

:

Το

To th' are, that o'er his wave-born bafis bow'd,
As ftooping to relieve him.

Tempeft, at 2. fc. 1.

In the next place, it may be gathered from what is faid, that an hyperbole can never fuit the tone of any difpiriting pailion: forrow in particular will never prompt fuch a figure; for which reason the following hyperboles must be condemned as

natural:

K. Rich. Aumerle, thou weep't my tender-hearted coufin!

We'll make foul weather with defpifed tears:

Our fighs, and they, fhall lodge the fummer-corn,
And make a dearth in this revolting land.

Richard II. at 3. Sc. 6.

Draw them to Tyber's bank, and weep your tears
Into the channel, till the loweft ftream

Do kifs the most exalted fhores of all.

Julius Cæfar, at 1. fc. 1.

Thirdly, A writer, if he wish to fucceed, ought always to have the reader in his eye: he ought in particular never to venture a bold thought or expreffion, till the reader be warmed and prepared. For that reafon, an hyperbole in the beginning of a work can never be in its place. Example:

Jam pauca aratro jugere regiæ
Moles elinquent.

Horat. Carm. l. 1. cde 15.

The nicest point of all, is to afcertain the natural limits of an hyperbole, beyond which being overftrained it hath a bad effect. Longinus, in the abovecited chapter, with great propriety of thought, enters a caveat against an hyperbole of this kind: he compares it to a bow-ftring, which relaxes by over

ftraining,

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