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CHAPTER VI.

APOSTROPHE.

309. APOSTROPHE is a turning off from the regular course of the subject to address some person or thing. Apostrophe, derived from the same source with personification, is the joint work of imagination and passion, but demands not generally so bold an exertion of those faculties as personification. (Art. 290.)

were in life.

Illus. 1. It is commonly satisfied with addressing living objects that are absent, or dead objects with which we were familiar while they Some of its boldest efforts exhaust the essence of personification, and call up and address the inanimate objects of nature. 2. A well-chosen comparison, an extended metaphor, or allegory, will please both the imagination and the passions, when gently agitated But let the passions rise to violence, and the gratifications of the imagination will yield them no satisfaction.

3. On this account, APOSTROPHES addressed to the imagination, are frequently extended to considerable length, and are not by being so the less agreeable: while those addressed to the passions, must all be short, to correspond to the desultory and distracted condition of the mind.

310. Our arrangement, then, of examples, will naturally fall into two classes; first, those more lengthened and picturesque apostrophes, in which the pleasure of the imagination has chiefly been consulted; and, secondly, those expressive of the violence of passion.

311. The bold and vigorous genius of Ossian delights in this figure, and affords many beautiful examples of the first species.

Example. His address to the Moon, is one of the most pleasant pictures of this sort, which, perhaps, any language can supply. It excites melancholy emotion, and charms the fancy, but it aims not to rouse strong passion.

"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 astonished will rejoice."

Analysis. The solution of the change of the moon, founded on the opinion that she retired from her course to lament the loss of her sisters, adds sympathy to the picture, and captivates the heart from the resemblance between her melancholy situation and that of the poet. In this example, the objects are striking, and tender, and elevated, and excite correspondent emotions in the mind, but they cannot be said to agitate it with passion.

312. The apostrophes of the second class are the offspring of deep agitation; and the subsequent instances will illus trate the nature of their influence and operation.

Example. In the tragedy of Douglas, Lady Randolph thus accounts for the loss of her son:

"That very night in which my son was born,
My nurse, the only confident I had,

Set out with him to reach her sister's house;
But nurse nor infant have I ever seen,

Nor heard of Anna since that fatal hour.

My murder'd child had thy fond mother feared

The loss of thee, she had loud fame defied,

Despised her father's rage, her father's grief,

And wander'd with thee through the scorning world."

Analysis. The apostrophe of the mother to the child, as soon as it was mentioned-the exaggerated supposition, that the unfortunate nurse had murdered it, and made her escape to save herself—the resolution of the mother to have run every risk, had she suspected any part of the misfortune that happened—are all the expressions of nature, and of genuine passion.

313. A principal error in the use of apostrophe, is to deck the object addressed with affected ornaments. It is by these ornaments that authors relinquish the expression of passion, and substitute in its stead the language of fancy.

Example. What opinion will the reader of taste form of the following quaint and laboured address of Cleopatra to the serpent, with which she was about to poison herself? It is taken from Dryden's All for Love.

"Welcome, thou kind deceiver,

Thou best of thieves, who, with an easy key,
Dost open life, and, unperceived by us,
Ev'n steal us from ourselves, discharging so
Death's dreadful office, better than himself,

Touching our limbs so gently into slumber,

That Death stands by, deceiv'd by his own image,
And thinks himself but sleep "

Analysis. Such conceits would scarcely be endured in the most cool descriptive poem. They cannot be supposed more improper than where they are. They resemble some of the obscure and forced allusions of allegorical writers, which the reader has difficulty to understand.

314. Another frequent error is, to extend this figure to too great length. The language of violent passion is always concise, and often abrupt. It passes suddenly from one object to another. It often glances at a thought, starts from it,

and leaves it unfinished. The succession of ideas is irregular, and connected by distant and uncommon relations.

Corol. On all these accounts, nothing is more unnatural than long speeches uttered by persons under the influence of strong passions. Yet this error occurs in several tragic poets of no inferior reputation.

315. Apostrophe frequently appeared in the oratory of antiquity. Demosthenes abounds in a figure so bold, and so suitable to the ardent tone of his own mind.

Illus. He often turns abruptly from the judges and his argument, and addresses himself to his antagonist, or the person accused. He seldom, however, personifies an inanimate object.

316. Cicero also affords many examples of every species of apostrophe.

Illus. 1. In his Oration for Ligarius, he addresses Tubero, the prosecutor, with vehemence, and paints in strong colours the criminality of his conduct, the partiality and animosity of his intentions. He personifies and addresses the sword of Tubero, and puts him in mind of being in arms against Cæsar at Pharsalia, if Ligarius, whom he accused of treason, had borne arms against Cæsar in Africa.*

2. In his speech against Catiline in the Senate, one of the most ardent and eloquent of all his orations, he burst forth abruptly like a torrent, with an apostrophe to Catiline himself, who had the impudence to enter the senate-house, while the subject of his conspiracy was to be debated.

3. Never did an oration commence in a higher tone; and it needed all the genius and fire of one of the greatest orators to support a correspondent spirit in the sequel of the speech. Cicero, however, effected it. He was deeply interested in the suppression of a conspiracy, which his office of consul, his honour as an orator, and the safety of his country, demanded of him. He was in the prime of life, elated with the highest fame of civil honours and oratorical ability; all concurred to prompt this great effort of eloquence.

317. Apostrophe has seldom made its appearance in modern oratory, except with some French preachers, and some enthusiasts of that character among ourselves.

Illus. A French orator may address the cross of Christ, and implore the patronage and intercession of St. Louis with success, on account of the peculiarity of the national faith of his countrymen; but such eloquence could expect no better reception in this island than ridicule or contempt.

318. The British Houses of Parliament are at present the best theatres in the world for the display of eloquence; but many causes concur to render its appearances there less bold than it was among the ancients.

Illus. The abstract political or commercial nature of a great part of

* Quid enim districtus ille tuus in acie Pharsalia gladius agebat? cujus latus ille mucro petebat? qui sensus erat armorum? quæ tua mens? oculi? manus? ardor animi? Quid cupiebas? quid optabas ?"

the subjects on which it is employed; the ambition of modern orators to reduce legislation and common law to the cool principles of equity and justice; their superior attention, on that account, to facts and arguments, than to the phraseology and figures of pathetic eloquence; and finally, the insensibility, perhaps, of British constitutions, and their greater indifference, on that account, to the pleasures of imagination and passion; all co-operate to repress the more passionate exhibitions of oratory.

319. At Athens and Rome, the existence of the state sometimes depended on an oration; the most successful speaker was sure to gain every honour and advantage the public had to bestow.

Illus. He addressed large bodies of men, who had no established principles to direct their judgments, little knowledge of the theory of government, little impartiality, little discernment, little experience Even the senate of Rome in later times, hardly merited a better character, and the assemblies of the people deserved a much worse one. They were factious, fickle, ignorant, partial, interested, and violent. They had no guides, but their appetites and passions, and the orators, to manage them, were obliged to impress these guides.

Corol. Apostrophe is, on the whole, a figure too passionate to gain much admittance into any species of composition, except poetry and oratory.

CHAPTER VII.

HYPERBOLE.

320. HYPERBOLE is also the offspring of the influence of imagination and passion over our opinions, and its purpose is to exalt our conceptions of an object beyond its natural bounds.

Illus. 1. Our passions magnify the qualities of objects to which they are attached, and diminish the qualities of those they disapprove or dislike. We exaggerate the good qualities of our friends, and underrate those of our enemies. We estimate higher a possession of our own, than a similar property of our neighbour. It is not insincerity that actuates us, and prompts us to impose on others, while we are conscious of the error. Our attachment to every thing connected with ourselves, dictates the partial judgments we form of it; the want of that attachment with respect to the things of our neighbour, or the opposite of it, aversion, with respect to the things of our enemy, make our opinions of them, in like manner, deviate from truth.

2. The purpose of hyperbole is to gratify these predilections and antipathies, which it is impossible to eradicate from the minds of the most enlightened part of mankind, and which often extinguish, in the less cultivated part, every spark of justice and candour.*

*"Est autem in usu vulgo quoque, et inter ineruditos, et apud rusticos videficit, quod natura est omnibus, augendi res vel minuendi cupiditas insita, nec quisquam vero contentus est." Quinctilian.

321. This figure is peculiarly graceful and pleasant, when we do not accurately perceive the limits of the subject we exaggerate because we most easily believe a thing is very great, when we do not know exactly how great it is.

Illus. Hyperbole, in such a case, resembles the beautiful deception of the rising moon, when her orb appears uncommonly large, because seen indistinctly through all the mists and vapours of the horizon; or that other deception in the phenomena of vision, by which a small object, placed in a shade, passes for a great one situated at a distance.

322. All discourse and writing admit hyperbole. Though the offspring of the most violent passion, it is also consistent with composure of mind. It sometimes affords high enjoyment to the imagination, and indulges this faculty with the most magnificent exhibitions of nature and art. It shines, however, with most conspicuous lustre in the higher kinds of poetry and oratory. It appears chiefly in tragedy during the first transports of passion; and in all these cases, it may be employed to diminish, as well as to magnify.

Example 1. The fear of an enemy augments the conceptions of the size and prowess of their leader. Thus the scout in Ossian, seized with this propensity, delineates a dreadful picture of the enemy's chief. "I saw their chief, tall as a rock of ice; his spear, the blasted fir; his shield, the rising moon; he sat on the shore, like a cloud of mist on the hill."

Example 2. Admiration of the happiness of successful love exagge rates conceptions of the lover. Shakspeare supposes the elevation of the lover's mind so great as to counteract the natural laws of gravity respecting his body.

"A lover may bestride the Gossamer,

That idles in the wanton summer air,
And yet not fall-so light is vanity.'

Example 3. Horror of treason and opposition prompts the most frightful notions of the traitor and oppressor. Cicero, on this feeling, exhibits a striking view of the enormities of Antony. "Quæ Charybdis tam vorax? Charybdim dico? Quæ si fuit, fuit animal unum. Oceanus, medius fidius, vix videtur tot res tam dissipatas, tam distantibus in locis positas, tam cito absorbere potuisse."

Example 4. The irksome feeling suggested by the sight of lean cattle tempts us to conclude, that the parts of their bodies have no bond of union but the skin. Virgil accordingly says of such animals, by way of diminution,

"Vix ossibus hærent."

Example 5. Envy also diminishes its object; and upon this principle Shakspeare introduces Cassius vilifying the behaviour of Cæsar in a fever.

"He had a fever when he was in Spain;
And when the fit was on him, I did mark
How he did shake.

'Tis true, this god did shake;

His coward lips did from their colour fly;
And that same eye whose bend did awe the world,

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