2. "Why should I speak of his neglect-neglect did I say? call it rather contempt."

EPIZEUXIS.

§ 589. EPIZEUXIS, from the Greek įπíševšıç, joining to, is rejoining or repeating the same word or words emphatically.

1.

2.

"Restore him, restore him if you can, from the dead.”

§ 590. EROTESIS, Greek ¿púrηoiç, is an animated or passionate interrogation.

1. What, Tubero, did that naked sword of yours mean in the battle of Pharsalia? At whose breast was its point aimed? What was then the meaning of your arms, your spirit, your What did you desire,

eyes, your hands, your ardor of soul? what wish for? I press the youth too much; he seems disturbed. Let me return to myself. I too bore arms on the same side. CICERO for Ligarius.

2. What is there in these days that you have not attempted? what have you not profaned? What name shall I give to this assembly? Shall I call you soldiers? you who have besieged with your arms and surrounded with a trench the son of your Emperor? Shall I call you citizens? you who have so shamefully trampled on the authority of the Senate? you who have violated the justice due to enemies, the sanctity of embassy, and the rights of nations?-TACITUS, Annals, b. i.

EUPHEMISM.

$591. EUPHEMISM, Greek evonoμós, eù, well, onμí, to speak, a figure by which a harsh or offensive word is set aside, and one that is delicate substituted in its place.

1.

Worn out with anguish, toil, and cold, and hunger,

Down sunk the wanderer; sleep had seized her senses.
There did the traveler find her in the morning:

God had released her.-SOUTHEY.

2. "That merchant prince has stopped payment."

HYPERBOLE.

$ 592. HYPERBOLE, Greek VTεрbоλn, excess, is a figure by which much more is expressed than the truth. In Hyperbole the exaggeration is so great that it can not be expected to be believed by the reader or the hearer. It is usually the offspring of a momentary conviction produced by sudden surprise on the part of the speaker and writer.

1. He told us that a part of the road from Salinas, in Persia, to Julamerk, was so frightful to travel, that a fat, spirited horse would in a single day suffer so much from terror, that before night he would be as thin as a knife-blade.-Dr. GRANT'S Nestorians.

2.

3.

4.

The universal host upsent

A shout that tore Hell's conclave, and beyond

Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night.-MILTON.

An elm is

A forest waving on a single tree.-HOLMES.

Camilla

Outstripped the winds with speed upon the plain,
Flew o'er the field, nor hurt the bearded grain;
She swept the seas, and, as she skimmed along,

Her flying foot unbathed in billows hung.-DRYDEN, Æn., b. vii.

HYPOTYPOSIS.

§ 593. HYPOTYPOSIS, from the Greek TоTÚTwois, under an image. A description of a thing in strong and lively colors, so that the past, the distant, and the future are represented as present. It is sometimes called Vision.

1.

2.

Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? come, let
Me clutch thee!-Macbeth.

Even now the devastation is begun,

And half the business of destruction done;

Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand,

I see the rural virtues leave the land,

Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail,
That idly waiting, flaps with every gale,

Downward they move a melancholy band,

Pass from the shore, and darken all the land;

Contented toil, and hospitable care,

And kind connubial tenderness are there.-GOLDSMITH.

3. I seem to myself to behold this city, the ornament of the earth and the capital of all nations, suddenly involved in one conflagration. I see before me the slaughtered heaps of citizens, lying unburied in the midst of their ruined country. The furious countenance of Cethegus rises to my view, while with a savage joy he is triumphing in your miseries.-CICERO.

4. Greece cries to us by the convulsed lips of her poisoned dying Demosthenes; and Rome pleads with us in the mute persuasion of her mangled Tully.-E. EVERETT.

5.

I see before me the gladiator lie:

He leans upon his hand; his manly brow

Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his drooped head sinks gradually low;
And through his side the last drops ebbing flow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,

Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now

The arena swims around him-he is gone,

Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.
He heard it, but he heeded not: his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away;
He recked not of the life he lost, nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother-he, their sire,
Butchered to make a Roman holiday!

All this rushed with his blood. Shall he expire,

And unavenged? Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!-Byron.

IRONY.

§ 594. IRONY, from the Greek ɛipwvia, from tipov, a dissem bler in speech, is a mode of speech expressing a sense contrary to that which the speaker intends to convey.

1. And it came to pass at noon that Elijah mocked them, and said, "Cry aloud; for he is a god: either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked."-1 Kings, xviii., 27.

2. The persons who have suffered from the cannibal philosophy of France are so like the Duke of Bedford, that nothing but his grace's not probably speaking so good French could enable us to find out any difference. A great many of them had as pompous titles, and were of full as illustrious a race; some few of them had fortunes as ample; several of them, without meaning the least disparagement to the Duke of Bedford, were as wise, and as virtuous, and as valiant, and as well educated, and as complete in all the lineaments of men of honor as he is. And to all this they had added the powerful outguard of a military profession, which in its nature renders men somewhat more cautious than those who have nothing to attend to but the lazy enjoyment of undisturbed possessions. But security was their ruin. They are dashed to pieces in the storm, and our shores are covered with the wrecks.-BURKE.

3.

Delightful Bowles, still blessing, and still bless'd,
All like thy strain; but children like it best.
Now to soft themes thou seemest to confine

The lofty numbers of a harp like thine,
Awake a louder and a louder strain,
Such as none heard before, or will again!
Where all discoveries jumbled from the flood,
Since first the leaky ark reposed in mud,
By more or less are sung in every book,
From Captain Noah down to Captain Cook ;

Bowles, in thy memory let this precept dwell,

Stick to thy sonnets, man—at least they sell.-BYRON.

LITOTES.

§ 595. LITOTES, Greek Airós, slender, is diminution, a figure in which, by denying the contrary, more is intended than is expressed; as, "The man is no fool," that is, he is wise.

1.

2.

To thee I call, but with no friendly voice,

And add thy name, O Sun, to tell thee how
I hate thy beams.-MILTON.

One of the few the immortal names

That were not born to die.-HALLECK.

METALEPSIS.

§ 596. METALEPSIS, from the Greek peráλmpis, participation, is the continuation of a trope in one word through a succession of significations, or it is the union of two or more tropes in one word.

1. "Napoleon was living"= Napoleon is dead.

2. "Fuit Ilium et ingens gloria Dardanidum" = Troy and the glory of the Trojans is no more.

METAPHOR.

§ 597. METAPHOR, from the Greek μerapópa, a transferring, is the use of a word in a sense which is beyond its original meaning. It is the transferring of a word from the object to which it properly belongs, and applying it to another to which that object bears some resemblance or analogy. It shows similitude without the sign of comparison.

1. The moral and political system of Hobbes was a palace of ice transparent, exactly proportioned, majestic, admired by the unwary as a delightful dwelling; but gradually undermined by the central warmth of human feeling, before it was thawed into muddy water by the sunshine of true philosophy. — Sir JAMES MACINTOSH.

2. The Gospel, formerly a forester, now became a citizen; and leaving the woods wherein it wandered, the hills and holes. wherein it hid itself before, dwelt quietly in populous places.— FULLER'S Church History, p. 23.

3. Burke thus describes the fall from power of Lord Chatham, and the rise of Charles Townsend:

Even then, before this splendid orb was entirely set, and while the western horizon was in a blaze with his descending glory, on the opposite quarter of the heavens arose another luminary, and for his hour became lord of the ascendant.

4. Short-lived, indeed, was Irish independence. I sat by her cradle; I followed her hearse.-GRATTAN.