putting on his armour; and lastly, ascending his| This indeed is a figure, which has been copied car, and driving along the surface of the sea. Far by Virgil, and almost all the poets of every age— from being disgusted by these delays, we are de- oculis micat acribus ignis-ignescunt ire: auris lighted with the particulars of the description. dolor ossibus ardet. Milton, describing Satan in Nothing can be more sublime than the circum- Hell, says, stance of the mountain's trembling beneath the footsteps of an immortal:

Τρέμε δ' ουρα μακρα και ύλη
Ποσσιν ύπ αθανατοισι Ποσειδάωνος ιοντος.

But his passage to the Grecian fleet is altogether transporting.

Βηδ' ελααν επι κι ματ, etc.

He mounts the car, the golden scourge applies,
He sits superior, and the chariot flies;
His whirling wheels the glassy surface sweep:
Th' enormous monsters, rolling o'er the deep,
Gambol around him on the watery way,
And heavy whales in awkward measures play:
The sea subsiding spreads a level plain,
Exults and crowns the monarch of the main;
The parting waves before his coursers fly;
The wondering waters leave his axle dry.

With head uplift above the wave, and eye

That sparkling blazed!—

-He spake: and to confirm his words out few
Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs
Of mighty cherubim. The sudden blaze
Far round illumined Hell-

There are certain words in every language particularly adapted to the poetical expression; some from the image or idea they convey to the imagi nation; and some from the effect they have upon the ear. The first are truly figurative; the others may be called emphatical.—Rollin observes, that Virgil has upon many occasions poetized (if we may be allowed the expression) a whole sentence by means of the same word, which is pendere.

Ite meæ, felix quondam pecus, ite capellæ,
Non ego vos posthac, viridi projectus in antro,
Dumosa pendere procul de rupe videbo.

At ease reclined beneath the verdant shade,
No more shall I behold my happy flock
Aloft hang browsing on the tufted rock.

With great veneration for the memory of Mr. Pope, we can not help objecting to some lines of this translation. We have no idea of the sea's exulting and crowning Neptune, after it had subsided into a level plain. There is no such image Here the word pendere wonderfully improves in the original. Homer says, the whales exulted, the landscape, and renders the whole passage and knew or owned their king; and that the sea beautifully picturesque. The same figurative verb parted with joy: γηθοσύνη δε θαλασσα διίστατο. we meet with in many different parts of the Neither is there a word of the wondering waters: Æneid. we therefore think the lines might be thus altered to advantage:

They knew and own'd the monarch of the main:
The sea subsiding spreads a level plain;
The curling waves before his coursers fly,
The parting surface leaves his brazen axle dry.

Hi summo in fluctu pendent, his unda dehiscens
Terram inter fluctus aperit.

These on the mountain billow hung; to those
The yawning waves thy yellow sand disclose.

In this instance, the words pendent and dehisAddison seems to have had this passage in his eye, cens, hung and yawning, are equally poetical when he wrote his Hymn, which is inserted in the Spectator:

-For though in dreadful worlds we hung,
High on the broken wave.

Besides the metaphors, similes, and allusions of poetry, there is an infinite variety of tropes, or turns of expression, occasionally disseminated through works of genius, which serve to animate the whole, and distinguish the glowing effusions of real inspiration from the cold efforts of mere science. These tropes consist of a certain happy choice and arrangement of words, by which ideas are artfully same disclosed in a great variety of attitudes, of epithets, and compound epithets; of sounds collected in order to echo the sense conveyed; of apostrophes; and, above all, the enchanting use of the prosopopœia, which is a kind of magic, by which the poet

And in another piece of a like nature, in the
collection:

Thy providence my life sustain'd
And all my wants redress'd,
When in the silent womb I lay,

And hung upon the breast.

Shakspeare, in his admired description of Dover

gives life and motion to every inanimate part of cliff, uses the same expression:
nature. Homer, describing the wrath of Agamem-
non, in the first book of the Iliad, strikes off a
glowing image in two words:

-Half way down

Hangs one that gathers samphire-dreadful trade!

Nothing can be more beautiful than the following picture, in which Milton has introduced the same expressive tint:

certain the vast height of Dover cliff; for the poet adds, "can not be heard so high." The place where Glo'ster stood was so high above the surface

We shall give one example more from Virgil, to of the sea, that the probes, or dashing, could show in what a variety of scenes it may appear not be heard; and therefore an enthusiastic admirwith propriety and effect. In describing the pro-er of Shakspeare might with some plausibility gress of Dido's passion for Æneas, the Poet says, affirm, the poet had chosen an expression in which that sound is not at all conveyed.

Iliacos iterum demens audire labores
Exposcit, pendetque iterum narrantis ab ore.

The woes of Troy once more she begg'd to hear;
Once more the mournful tale employ'd his tongue,
While in fond rapture on his lips she hung.

In the very same page of Homer's Iliad we meet with two other striking instances of the same sort of beauty. Apollo, incensed at the insults his priest had sustained, descends from the top of Olympus, with his bow and quiver rattling on his shoulder as he moved along;

Εκλαγξαν δ' αρ

εστω επ ωμων.

The reader will perceive in all these instances, that no other word could be substituted with equal energy; indeed no other word could be used without degrading the sense, and defacing the image. Here the sound of the word Exxayav admirably exThere are many other verbs of poetical import presses the clanking of armour; as the third line fetched from nature, and from art, which the poet after this surprisingly imitates the twanging of a uses to advantage, both in a literal and metaphori- bow. cal sense; and these have been always translated for the same purpose from one language to another; such as quasso, concutio, cio, suscito, lenio, sævio, mano, fluo, ardeo, mico, aro, to shake, to In shrill-ton'd murmurs sung the twanging bow. wake, to rouse, to soothe, to rage, to flow, to shine Many beauties of the same kind are scattered or blaze, to plough.-Quassantia tectum liminaEneas, casu, concussus acerbo-Ære ciere viros, through Homer, Pindar, and Theocritus, such as Martemque accendere cantu-Æneas acuit Mar- the Boμbevod μeriood, susurrans apicula; the tem et se suscitat ira-Impium lenite clamorem. adu ibupioμa, dulcem susurrum; and the μodeLenibant curas-Ne sævi magna sacerdos-Su-Ta, for the sighing of the pine.

Δενη δε κλαγγή γενετ αργυρεοιο Βιοιο,

dor ad imos manabat solos-Suspensæque diu The Latin language teems with sounds adapted to lachrymæ fluxere per ora-Juvenali ardebat every situation, and the English is not destitute of amore—Micat æreus ensis—Nullum maris æquor this significant energy. We have the cooing turtle, arandum. It will be unnecessary to insert examples of the same nature from the English poets.

the sighing reed, the warbling rivulet, the sliding stream, the whispering breeze, the glance, the The words we term emphatical, are such as by gleam, the flash, the bickering flame, the dashing their sound express the sense they are intended to wave, the gushing spring, the howling blast, the convey and with these the Greek abounds, above rattling storm, the pattering shower, the crimp all other languages, not only from its natural copi-earth, the mouldering tower, the twanging bowousness, flexibility, and significance, but also from string, the clanging arms, the clanking chains, the variety of its dialects, which enables a writer the twinkling stars, the tinkling chords, the trickto vary his terminations occasionally as the nature ling drops, the twittering swallow, the cawing of the subject requires, without offending the most rook, the screeching owl; and a thousand other delicate ear, or incurring the imputation of adopt- words and epithets, wonderfully suited to the sense ing vulgar provincial expressions. Every smat- they imply. terer in Greek can repeat

Βη δ' ακέων παρα θινα πολυφλοίσβοιο θαλάσσης, in which the last two words wonderfully echo to the sense, conveying the idea of the sea dashing on the shore. How much more significant in sound than that beautiful image of Shakspeare

The sea that on the unnumber'd pebbles beats.

Among the select passages of poetry which we shall insert by way of illustration, the reader will find instances of all the different tropes and figures which the best authors have adopted in the variety of their poetical works, as well as of the apostrophe, abrupt transition, repetition, and prosopopoeia.

In the mean time it will be necessary still further to analyze those principles which constitute the essence of poetical merit; to display those delightful parterres that teem with the fairest flowers And yet, if we consider the strictness of pro- of imagination; and distinguish between the gaudy priety, this last expression would seem to have offspring of a cold insipid fancy, and the glowing been selected on purpose to concur with the other progeny, diffusing sweets, produced and invigo crcumstances, which are brought together to as-rated by the sun of genius.

ESSAY XVI.

"Of all the implements of poetry, the metaphor is the most generally and successfully used, and indeed may be termed the Muse's caduceus, by the power of which she enchants all nature. The metaphor is a shorter simile, or rather a kind of magical coat, by which the same idea assumes a thousand different appearances. Thus the word plough, which originally belongs to agriculture, being metaphorically used, represents the motion of a ship at sea, and the effects of old age upon the human countenance

-Plough'd the bosom of the deep

And time had plough'd his venerable front.

|verage chastised by the sober deity,"—a metaphor that signifies nothing more than "mixed or lowered with water." Demetrius Phalereus justly observes, that though a judicious use of metaphors wonderfully raises, sublimes, and adorns oratory or elocution, yet they should seem to flow naturally from the subject; and too great a redundancy of them inflates the discourse to a mere rhapsody. The same observation will hold in poetry; and the more liberal or sparing use of them will depend in a great measure on the nature of the subject. Passion itself is very figurative, and often bursts out into metaphors; but in touching the pathos, the poet must be perfectly well acquainted with the emotions of the human soul, and carefully distinguish between those metaphors which rise glowing from the heart, and those cold conceits which Almost every verb, noun substantive, or term of are engendered in the fancy. Should one of these art in any language, may be in this manner ap- last unfortunately intervene, it will be apt to deplied to a variety of subjects with admirable effect; stroy the whole effect of the most pathetical incibut the danger is in sowing metaphors too thick dent or situation. Indeed it requires the most so as to distract the imagination of the reader, and delicate taste, and aconsummate knowledge of proincur the imputation of deserting nature, in order priety, to employ metaphors in such a manner as to hunt after conceits. Every day produces poems to avoid what the ancients call the To uxor, the of all kinds, so inflated with metaphor, that they frigid, or false sublime, Instances of this kind may be compared to the gaudy bubbles blown up were frequent even among the correct ancients. from a solution of soap. Longinus is of opinion, Sappho herself is blamed for using the hyperbole that a multitude of metaphors is never excusable, uxorepos Xovos, whiter than snow. Demetrius is except in those cases when the passions are rous- so nice as to be disgusted at the simile of swift as ed, and like a winter torrent rush down impetu- the wind; though, in speaking of a race-horse, we ous, sweeping them with collective force along. know from experience that this is not even an hyHe brings an instance of the following quotation perbole. He would have had more reason to censure from Demosthenes; "Men," says he, "profli- that kind of metaphor which Aristotle styles 127' gates, miscreants, and flatterers, who having seve- every way, exhibiting things inanimate as endued with rally preyed upon the bowels of their country, at sense and reason; such as that of the sharp pointed length betrayed her liberty, first to Philip, and now arrow, eager to take wing among the crowd. again to Alexander; who, placing the chief felici- O' Eubians xat' quinoV WITTIÕLI μELIVE. Not but ty of life in the indulgence of infamous lusts and that in descriptive poetry this figure is often allowappetites, overturned in the dust that freedom and ed and admired. The cruel sword, the ruthless independence which was the chief aim and end of all our worthy ancestors."*

Aristotle and Theophrastus seem to think it is rather too bold and hazardous to use metaphors so freely, without interposing some mitigating phrase, such as "if I may be allowed the expression," or some equivalent excuse. At the same time Longinus finds fault with Plato for hazarding some metaphors, which indeed appear to be equally affected and extravagant, when he says, "The government of a state should not resemble a bowl of hot fermenting wine, but a cool and moderate be

* Άνθρωποι, φησί, μιαροί, και αλάστορες, και κολακες, ακρωτηριασμένοι τας ἑαυτῶν έκαστοι πατρίδας την ελευθερίαν προπεπωκότες, προτερον Φιλιππῳ, νυν δ' Αλεξανδρο, τη γαστρι μετρούντες και τοις αισχίστοις την ευδαιμονίαν, την δ' ελευθερίαν, και To undeva exer δεσποτην αύτων, ἃ τοις προτέροις, Ἑλλησιν οροι των αγα. Owv noay xas xavoris, etc.

dagger, the ruffian blast, are epithets which frequently occur. The faithful bosom of the earth, the joyous boughs, the trees that admire their images reflected in the stream, and many other examples of this kind, are found disseminated through the works of our best modern poets; yet still they must be sheltered under the privilege of the poetica licentia; and, expect in poetry, they would give offence.

More chaste metaphors are freely used in all kinds of writing; more sparingly in history, and more abundantly in rhetoric: we have seen that Plato indulges in them even to excess. The orations of Demosthenes are animated and even infamed with metaphors, some of them so bold as even to entail upon him the censure of the critics Τοτε το Πυθωνι τῷ ρητορι 'ρεύντι καθ' υμών. Then I did not yield to Python the orator, when he overflowed you with a tide of eloquence.” Cicero is still more liberal in the use of them: he ransacks

all nature, and pours forth a redundancy of figures, an author so universally held in veneration, whose even with a lavish hand. Even the chaste Xeno- very errors have helped to sanctify his character phon, who generally illustrates his subject by way among the multitude, we will descend to particu of simile, sometimes ventures to produce an ex-lars, and analyze this famous soliloquy. pressive metaphor, such as, part of the phalanx Hamlet, having assumed the disguise of madness, fluctuated in the march; and indeed nothing can as a cloak under which he might the more effec be more significant than this word exuunve, to tually revenge his father's death upon the murderer represent a body of men staggered, and on the and usurper, appears alone upon the stage in a point of giving way. Armstrong has used the pensive and melancholy attitude, and communes word fluctuate with admirable efficacy, in his phi- with himself in these words: losophical poem, entitled, The Art of Preserving Health.

O! when the growling winds contend, and all
The sounding forest fluctuates in the storm,
To sink in warm repose, and hear the din
Howl o'er the steady battlements-

The word fluctuate on this occasion not only exhibits an idea of struggling, but also echoes to the sense like the sopičev de μann of Homer; which, by the by, it is impossible to render into English, for the verb opo signifies not only to stand erect like prickles, as a grove of lances, but also to make a noise like the crashing of armour, the hissing of javelins, and the splinters of spears.

To be, or not to be, that is the question:-
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune;
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them?-To die,-to sleep,-
No more; and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ach, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,-'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die ;--to sleep ;-
To sleep! perchance to dream ;-ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we are shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause:-There's the respect,
That makes calamity of so long life:

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life;
But that the dread of something after death,-
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns,-puzzles the will:
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

Over and above an excess of figures, a young author is apt to run into a confusion of mixed metaphors, which leave the sense disjointed, and distract the imagination: Shakspeare himself is often guilty of these irregularities. The soliloquy in Hamlet, which we have so often heard extolled in terms of admiration, is, in our opinion, a heap of absurdities, whether we consider the situation, the sentiment, the argumentation, or the poetry. Hamlet is informed by the Ghost, that his father was murdered, and therefore he is tempted to murder himself, even after he had promised to take vengeance on the usurper, and expressed the utmost eagerness to achieve this enterprise. It does not appear that he had the least reason to wish for death; but every motive which may be supposed We have already observed, that there is not any to influence the mind of a young prince, concurred apparent circumstance in the fate or situation of to render life desirable-revenge towards the usur- Hamlet, that should prompt him to harbour one per; love for the fair Ophelia; and the ambition thought of self-murder: and therefore these exof reigning. Besides, when he had an opportu- pressions of despair imply an impropriety in point nity of dying without being accessary to his own of character. But supposing his condition was death; when he had nothing to do but, in obe- truly desperate, and he saw no possibility of repose dience to his uncle's command, to allow himself to but in the uncertain harbour of death, let us see in be conveyed quietly to England, where he was what manner he argues on that subject. The sure of suffering death; instead of amusing him- question is, "To be, or not to be;" to die by my self with meditations on mortality, he very wisely own hand, or live and suffer the miseries of life. consulted the means of self-preservation, turned He proceeds to explain the alternative in these the tables upon his attendants, and returned to terms, "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer, Denmark. But granting him to have been re- or endure the frowns of fortune, or to take arms, duced to the lowest state of despondence, surround- and by opposing, end them." Here he deviates ed with nothing but horror and despair, sick of from his first proposition, and death is no longer this life, and eager to tempt futurity, we shall see the question. The only doubt is, whether he will how far he argues like a philosopher. stoop to misforture, or exert his faculties in order In order to support this general charge against to surmount it. This surely is the obvious mean

ing, and indeed the only meaning that can be im- question. Hamlet was deterred from suicide by plied to these words,

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune;
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing, end them?

-The dread of something after death,-The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn No traveller returns.

full conviction, that, in flying from one sea of troubles which he did know, he should fall into another which he did not know.

His whole chain of reasoning, therefore, seems inconsistent and incongruous. "I am doubtful whether I should live, or do violence upon my own

He now drops this idea, and reverts to his reason-life: for I knew not whether it is more honourable ing on death, in the course of which he owns him to bear misfortune patiently, than to exert myself self deterred from suicide by the thoughts of what in opposing misfortune, and by opposing, end it." may follow death; Let us throw it into the form of a syllogism, it will stand thus: "I am oppressed with ills; I know not whether it is more honourable to bear those ills patiently, or to end them by taking arms against them: ergo, I am doubtful whether I should slay myself or live. To die, is no more than to sleep; and to say that by a sleep we end the heart-ache," etc. "'tis a consummation devoutly to be wish'd" Now to say it was of no consequence unless it had been true. "I am afraid of the dreams that may happen in that sleep of death; and I choose rather to bear those ills I have in this life, than to fly to other ills in that undiscovered country, from whose

This might be a good argument in a Heathen or Pagan, and such indeed Hamlet really was; but Shakspeare has already represented him as a good Catholic, who must have been acquainted with the truths of revealed religion, and says expressly in this very play,

-Had not the everlasting fix'd His canon 'gainst self-murder.

Moreover, he had just been conversing with his bourn no traveller ever returns. I have ills that father's spirit piping hot from purgatory, which are almost insupportable in this life. I know not we presume is not within the bourn of this world. what is in the next, because it is an undiscovered The dread of what may happen after death, country: ergo, I'd rather bear those ills I have, says he,

Makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.

than fly to others which I know not of." Here the conclusion is by no means warranted by the premises. "I am sore afflicted in this life; but I will rather bear the afflictions of this life, than This declaration at least implies some knowledge plunge myself in the afflictions of another life: of the other world, and expressly asserts, that there ergo, conscience makes cowards of us all." But must be ills in that world, though what kind of ills this conclusion would justify the logician in saythey are, we do not know. The argument, there-ing, negatur consequens; for it is entirely defore, may be reduced to this lemma: this world tached both from the major and minor propo

abounds with ills which I feel; the other world abounds with ills, the nature of which I do not know; therefore, I will rather bear those ills I have, "than fly to others which I know not of: " a deduction amounting to a certainty, with respect to the only circumstance that could create a doubt, namely, whether in death he should rest from his misery; and if he was certain there were evils in the next world, as well as in this, he had no room to reason at all about the matter. What alone could justify his thinking on this subject, would

sition.

This soliloquy is not less exceptionable in the propriety of expression, than in the chain of argumentation. "To die-to sleep-no more," contains an ambiguity, which all the art of punctustion can not remove: for it may signify that "to die," is to sleep no more; or the expression "no more," may be considered as an abrupt apostrophe in thinking, as if he meant to say "no more of that reflection."

"Ay, there's the rub," is a vulgarism beneath have been the hope of flying from the ills of this the dignity of Hamlet's character, and the words world, without encountering any others in the that follow leave the sense imperfect:

next.

Nor is Hamlet more accurate in the following reflection:

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.

Not the dreams that might come, but the fear of A bad conscience will make us cowards; but a what dreams might come, occasioned the pause of good conscience will make us brave. It does not hesitation. Respect in the same line may be al

appear that any thing lay heavy on his conscience; lowed to pass for consideration: but

and from the premises we can not help inferring, that conscience in this case was entirely out of the

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely