Here after endless labors, often tossed
By raging storms and driven on every coast,
"My father! thou didst leave me-thee I lost."
Ease of my cares and solace of my pain,

Saved through a thousand toils, but saved in vain.
The prophet who my future woes revealed
Yet this the greatest and the worst concealed,
And dire Celano, whose foreboding skill
Denounced all else, was silent of this ill.

Strike the harp in praise of Bragela, whom I left in the isle of mist, the spouse of my love. Dost thou raise thy fair face from the rock to find the sails of Cuchullin? The sea is rolling far distant, and its white foam shall deceive thee for my sails. Retire, for it is night, my love, and the dark winds sigh in thy hair. Retire to the hall of my feasts, and think of the times that are past; for I will not return till the storm of war is gone. O Connal, speak of wars and arms, and send her from my mind; for lovely with her raven-hair is the white-bosom'd daughter of Sorglan. Fingal, B. I.

Speaking of Fingal absent:

Happy are thy people, O Fingal; thine arm shall fight their battles. Thou art the first in their dangers; the wisest in the days of their peace: thou speakest, and thy thousands obey; and armies tremble at the sound of thy steel. Happy are thy people, O Fingal.

This figure is sometimes joined with the former: things inanimate, to qualify them for listening to a passionate expostulation, are not only personified, but also conceived to be present:

Et si fata Deûm, si mens non læva fuisset,
Impulerat ferro Argolicas fœdare latebras:

Trojaque nunc stares, Priamique arx alla maneres.

Eneid, II. 54.

All's Well that Ends Well, Act III. Sc.

And let them lift ten thousand swords, said Nathos, with a smile: the sons of car-borne Usnoth will never tremble in danger. Why dost thou roll with all thy foam, thou roaring sea of Ullin? why do ye rustle on your dark wings, ye whistling tempests of the sky? Do ye think, ye storms, that ye keep Nathos on the coast? No; his soul detains him; children of the night! Althos, bring my father's arms, &c. Fingal.

Whither hast thou fled, O wind, said the King of Morven! Dost thou rustle in the chambers of the south, and pursue the shower in other lands? Why comest not thou to my sails, to the blue face of my seas? The foe is in the land of Mor ven, and the King is absent. Fingal.

Hast thou left thy blue course in heaven, golden-hair'd son of the sky! The west hath opened its gates; the bed of thy repose is there. The waves gather to behold thy beauty: they lift their trembling heads; they see thee lovely in thy sleep; but they shrink away with fear. Rest in thy shadowy cave, O Sun! and let thy return be in joy.

Fingal

Daughter of Heaven, fair art thou! the silence of thy face is pleasant. Thou comest forth in loveliness: the stars attend thy blue steps in the east. The clouds rejoice in thy presence, O Moon! and brighten their dark brown sides. Who is like thee in heaven, daughter of the night? The stars are ashamed in thy presence, and turn aside their sparkling eyes. Whither dost thou retire from thy course, when the darkness of thy countenance grows? Hast thou thy hall like Ossian? Dwellest thou in the shadow of grief? Have thy sisters fallen from heaven? and are they who rejoiced with thee at night no more?—Yes, they have fallen, fair light; and often dost thou retire to mourn.- -But thou thyself shalt, one night, fail; and leave thy blue path in heaven. The stars will then lift their heads: they, who in thy presence were ashamed, 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; isque parentem
Te, Saturne, refert; tu sanguinis ultimus auctor.

But Faunus came from Picus-Picus drew
His birth from Saturn, if records be true;
Thus king Latinus in the third degree
Had Saturn author of his family.

SECTION 111.

HYPERBOLE.

Eneid, VII. 48."

Magnifying or diminishing an object beyond due bounds, an hyperbole-Objects more successfully magnified than diminished-Hyperbole proper when the subject exceeds the common measure-An hyperbole not to be introduced in the description of an ordinary thing-Not suitable to a dispiriting passion--Not to be introduced till the reader is warmed-Not to be overstrained-To comprehend the fewest words possible.

In this figure, by which an object is magnified or diminished beyond truth, we have another effect of the foregoing principle. An object of an uncommon size, either very great of its kind or very little, strikes us with surprise; and this emotion produces a momentary conviction that the object is greater or less than it is in reality: the same effect, precisely, attends figurative grandeur or littleness; and hence the hyperbole, which expresses that momentary conviction. A writer, taking advantage of this natural delusion, warms his description greatly by the hyperbole: and the reader, even in his coolest moments, relishes the figure, being sensible that it is the operation of nature upon a glowing fancy.

It cannot have escaped observation, that a writer is commonly more successful in magnifying by an hyperbole than in diminishing. The reason is, that a minute object contracts the mind, and fetters its power of imagination; but that the mind, dilated and inflamed with a grand object, moulds objects for its gratification with great facility. Longinus, with respect to diminishing hyperbole, quotes the following ludicrous thought from a comic poet: "He was owner of a bit of ground no larger than a Lacedæmonian letter." † But, for the reason now given, the hyperbole has by far the greater force in magnifying objects; of which take the following examples: *See Chap. VIII. + Chap. XXXI. of his Treatise on the Sublime.

For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth; so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy sced also be numbered.

Genesis, XIII. 15, 16

Illa vel intacta segetis per summa volaret
Gramina: nec teneras cursu læsisset aristas.
* Outstripped the winds in speed upon the plain,
Flew o'er the field, nor hurt the bearded grain.

Eneid, VII. 808.

Eneid, III. 421.

Atque imo barathri ter gurgite vastos
Sorbet in abruptum fluctus, rursusque sub auras
Erigit alternos, et sidera verberat undâ.
And in her greedy whirlpool sucks the tides,
Then spouts them from below; with fury driven,
The waves mount up, and wash the face of heaven.
Horificis juxta tonat Etna ruinis,

Interdumque atram prorumpit ad æthera nubem,
Turbine fumantem piceo et candente favilla:
Attollitque globos flammarum, et sidera lambit.
The port capacious and secure from wind
Is to the foot of thundering Etna joined,
By turns a patchy cloud she rolls on high,
By turns hot embers from her entrails fly,
And lakes of mountain flames that lick the sky.

Speaking of Polyphemus:

Eneid, III. 571

Eneid, III. 619.

Henry V. Act I. Sc. 1.

Now shield with shield, with helmet helmet clos'd,
To armor armor, lance to lance oppos'd.

Host against host with shadowy squadrons drew,
The sounding darts in iron tempests flew.
Victors and vanquish'd join promiscuous cries,
And shrilling shouts and dying groans arise;
With streaming blood the slipp'ry fields are dy'd,
And slaughter'd heroes swell the dreadful tide.

The following may also pass, though far stretched:

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

Пiad, IV. 508.

Gierusalem, Cant. VI. st. 46.

Fairfax.

Uniting force extreme, with endlesse wrath,
Supporting both with youth and strength untired,
His thundering blows so fast about he la'th,
That skies and earth the flying sparkles fired.

Quintillian † is sensible that this figure is natural: "For," says he, "not contented with truth, we naturally incline to augment or diminish beyond it; and for that reason the hyperbole is familiar even among the vulgar and illiterate:" and he adds very justly, "That the hyperbole is then proper, when the subject of itsel exceeds the common measure." From these premises, one would not expect the following inference, the only reason he can find for justifying this figure of speech, "Conceditur enim amplius dicere Camilla, the Volscian heroine. +L. VIII. cap. 6. in fin.

quia dici quantum est non potest: meliusque ultra quam citra stat oratio." (We are indulged to say more than enough, because we cannot say enough; and it is better to be above than under.) In the naine of wonder, why this childish reasoning, after observing that the hyperbole is founded on human nature? I could not resist

this personal stroke of criticism; intended not against our author, for no human creature is exempt from error, but against the blind veneration that is paid to the ancient classic writers, without distinguishing 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 description of any thing ordinary or familiar; for in such a case, it is altogether unnatural, being destitute of surprise, its only foundation. the following instance, where the subject is extremely familiar, viz. swimming to gain the shore after a shipwreck.

I saw him beat the surges under him,

And ride upon their backs; he trode the water,
Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted

The surge most swoln that met him: his bold head
'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd

Himself with his good arms, in lusty strokes

To th' shore, that o'er his wave-borne basis bow'd,
As stooping to relieve him.

Tempest, Act II. Sc. I.

Take

In the next place, it may be gathered from what is said, that an yperbole can never suit the tone of any dispiriting passion: sorrow, in particular, will never prompt such a figure; for which reason the following hyperboles must be condemned as unnatural:

K. Rich. Aumerle, thou weep'st, my tender-hearted cousin!
We'll make foul weather with despised tears:

Our sighs, and they, shall lodge the summer-corn,

And make a dearth in this revolting land.

Richard II. Act III. Sc. 3.

Draw them to Tyber's bank, and weep your tears

Into the channel, till the lowest stream
Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.

Julius Casar, Act I. Sc. I.

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

The nicest point of all, is to ascertain the natural limits of an hyperbole, beyond which being overstrained it has a bad effect. Longinus, in the above-cited chapter, with great propriety of thought, enters a caveat against an hyperbole of this kind: he compares it to a bow-st ing, which relaxes by overstraining, and produces an effect

directly opposite to what is intended. To ascertain any precise boun dary, would be difficult, if not impracticable. Mine shall be an humbler task, which is, to give a specimen of what I reckon overstrained hyperbole; and I shall be brief upon them, because examples are to be found every where; no fault is more common among writers of inferior rank; and instances are found even among classical writers; witness the following hyperbole, too bold even for an Hotspur.

Hotspur talking of Mortimer:

In single opposition hand to hand,

He did confound the best part of an hour

In changing hardiment with great Glendower.

Three times they breath'd, and three times did they drink,
Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood,
Who then affrighted with their bloody looks,
Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds,
And hid his crisp'd head in the hollow bank,
Blood-stained with these valiant combatants.

Speaking of Henry V.,

First Part Henry IV. Act I. Sc. 3.

England ne'er had a king until his time:
Virtue he had, deserving to command:

His brandish'd sword did blind men with its beams:
His arms spread wider than a dragon's wings:
His sparkling eyes, replete with awful fire,
More dazzled, and drove back his enemies,
Than mid-day sun fierce bent against their faces.
What should I say? his deeds exceed all speech:
He never lifted up his hand, but conquer'd.

First Part Henry VI. Act I. Sc. I.

Lastly, an hyperbole, after it is introduced with all advantages, ought to be comprehended within the fewest words possible: as it cannot be relished but in the hurry and swelling of the mind, a leisurely view dissolves the charm, and discovers the description to be extravagant at least, and perhaps also ridiculous. This fault is palpable in a sonnet which passes for one of the most complete in the French language. Phillis, in a long and florid description, is made as far to outshine the sun as he outshines the stars

Le silence régnoit sur la terre et sur l'onde,
L'air devenoit serein et l'Olympe vermeil,
Et l'amoureux Zéphir affranchi du sommeil,
Ressuscitoit les fleurs d'une haleine féconde.
L'Aurore déployoit l'or de sa tresse blonde,
Et semoit de rubis le chemin du soleil;
Enfin ce Dieu venoit au plus grand appareil
Qu'il soit jamais venu pour éclairer le monde.
Quand la jeune Phillis au visage riant,
Sortant de son palais plus clair que l'orient,
Fit voir une lumière et plus vive et plus belle.
Sacré flambeau du jour, n'en soyez point jaloux.
Vous parûtes alors aussi peu devant elle,

Que les feux de la nuit avoient fait devant vous.

Malleville.

There is in Chaucer a thought expressed in a single line, which gives more lustre to a young beauty, than the whole of this muchlabored poem:

Up rose the sun, and up rose Emelic.