and they thereby give it all the prominence and effect possible. Thus, in the following illustration: "When we dip too deep in pleasure, we always stir a sediment that renders it impure and noxious;" and in this: "A heart boiling with violent passion will always send up infatuating fumes to the head;" the images called up by the striking figures drawn from sensible objects, serve far better than arguments alone to force conviction, and to make a deep and lasting impression on the mind. 15. When, therefore, we would describe an object as very beautiful, or magnificent, we borrow images from all the most beautiful or splendid scenes of nature; we thereby throw an adventitious lustre over our subject; we enliven the reader's mind, and dispose him to share our emotions, and thus to yield himself to impressions which we strive to make upon him. These effects of figurative language are happily shown in the following lines, and illustrated by a very sublime figure at their close: "Then the inexpressive strain Diffuses its enchantment'. Fancy dreams And smiles."—AKENSIDE, Pleasures of Imagination. Here the intellectual power, personified, is represented as bending from his awful throne, listening in wonder, and smiling with approbation. 16. Yet we must observe, by way of caution to youthful writers, that while figures of speech add ornament, dignity, and grace to solid thought and natural sentiment', a correct and refined taste is a requisite guide to their proper use. It must be borne in mind that no figures will render a cold or an empty composition interesting'; and that the figure is only the dress, while the sentiment is the body and the sub stance. 17. Moreover, the strong pathetic, and the pure sublime, not only have little dependence on figures of speech, but they generally reject them. What Longinus declares to be the most sublime language ever penned " God said, Let there be light; and there was light"-imparts a lofty conception, to much greater advantage than if it had been decorated by the most pompous metaphors. The proper place for figures of speech is where a moderate degree of elevation and passion is required; and there they contribute to the embellishment of discourse only when they are inserted in their proper place, and when they rise, of themselves, from the subject, without being sought after. In the following pages the various kinds of figures will be described, and their proper use explained, and illustrated by numerous examples. FIGURES OF SPEECH are sometimes divided into Figures of Words and Figures of Thought. 1. Figures of Words, generally called tropes, because the words are turned from their primary meaning, are modes of expressing abstract or immaterial ideas by words which suggest pictures or images from the material world. Tropes are divided by rhetoricians into two classes, syn ĕe'do ches and me ton'o mies. a A Syn ěc'do che (Syn ek'do ky) is the naming of the whole for a part, or of a part for the whole; and hence it changes a word from its original meaning in degree only, and not in kind. Thus: "This roof (i. e. house) protects you." "Give us our "Now the year (i. e. summer) is beautiful." daily bread" (i. e. food). b A Me ton'o my is the substitution of one word in place of another that has some relation to it; as when, 1st. The cause is put for the effect; 2d. The place is put for the inhabitant; 3d. The container is put for the thing contained, and the contrary. Thus, 1st. "God is our salvation” (i. e. Savior); 2d. "They smote the city" (i. e. the inhabitants); 3d. "Always address the chair" (i. e. the presiding officer). "A man keeps a good table” (i. e. provisions). "We read Virgil” (i. e. his writings). "A man has a warm heart” (i. e. affections). II. FIGURES OF THOUGHT are those figures in which the words are used in their proper and literal meaning, and the figure consists in the turn of the thought, as in exclamations, apostrophes, and comparisons. But the distinction is not always clear between tropes and figures of thought, and is, practically, of little importance. • A trōpe, used to personify the sun. See Personification, p. 207. d Here Fate, personified as Death, is represented as knocking alike at the doors of rich and poor, and claiming his victims. * Єha'ron, a fabulous being of Grecian mythology, who conducted the souls of the dead, in a boat, over the River Ach'e ron, to the lower regions. VULGARISM IN LANGUAGE.-CHESTERFIELD. VULGARISM in language is a distinguishing characteristic of bad company, and a bad education. Proverbial expressions, and trite sayings, are the flowers of the rhetoric of a vulgar man. He has always some favorite word for the time being; which, for the sake of using often, he commonly abuses; such as, vastly angry, vastly kind, vastly handsome, and vastly ugly. He sometimes affects hard words, by way of ornament, which he always mangles. A man of fashion never has recourse to proverbs and vulgar aphorisms; uses neither favorite words, nor hard words; but takes great care to speak very correctly and grammatically, and to pronounce properly; that is, according to the usage of the best companies. LESSON XXIX. EXPRESSION IN READING. LLOYD. [ROBERT LLOYD, an English poet, was born in 1733. Becoming an author by profession, his genius could not shield him from poverty, and he died a prisoner in the Fleet at the early age of 31. The following little poem shows the importance of a correct modulation in reading and speaking, a subject almost as important as the proper use of words in writing; for it is by reading and speaking that the sense of words is interpreted to the ear. See also "Poetical Composition," p. 327.] 1. 'Tis not enough the voice be sound and clear,— When desperate heroines grieve with tedious moan', 2. That voice all modes of passion can express, 3. Some o'er the tongue the labored measures roll Point every stop', make every pause so strong', And even in speaking' we may seem too` just'. 4. In vain for them the pleasing measure flows, Repeating what the poet sets not down- 5. Some plăcid natures fill the allotted scene With lifeless drone, insipid and serene; While others thunder every couplet o'er, 6. More nature', oft', and finer strokes', are shown 7. He who, in earnest, studies o'er his part', And darts its meaning from the speaking eyes; Until near the beginning of the present century oi was extensively pronounced like long, as jīne, for join. These four lines are an allusion to the ghost scene in Hamlet. LESSON XXX. HAMLET'S INSTRUCTION TO THE PLAYERS. Descriptive and Instructive.-SHAKSPEARE's Hamlet, Act III. [WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, the great English dramatist, was born in Stratford-uponAvon in 1564: died there in 1616. Very little is known of the events of his life; but his "Plays" are now read throughout the civilized world. This lesson will be found a fine exercise for nice discriminative declamation. Those portions of the speech which contain Hamlet's direct instructions to the players are to be spoken with an affected nicety and delicacy of speech and manner,— "trippingly on the tongue;" but judiciously intermingled with considerable abrupt force in the emphatic portions. The heavier, harsh, guttural tone is to be used where Hamlet reprobates the bad style of acting which he would have the players avoid.] 1. SPEAK the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced' it to you,-trippingly on the tongue: but, if you mouth' it', as many of our players do', I had as lief the town-crier' spake my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, E thus'; but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of your passion', you must ac quire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness'. 2. O! it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters-to very ragsto split the ears of the groundlings'"; who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb show and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant: it out-herods Herod': Pray you, avoid it. 3. Be not too tame, neither;' but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word'; the word to the action'; with this special observance that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone', is from the purpose of playing'; whose end, both at the first and now, was, and is, to hold, as 't were, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature; scorn her own image; and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure. Now this, overdone, or come tardy off", though it make the unskillful laugh, can not but make the judicious grieve. 4. O! there be players, that I have seen play—and heard others praise, and that highly-not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, or man, have so strutted, and bellowed, that I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well,-they imitated humanity so abominably! a The meaner sort of people, who sat in the pit. b Herod's character was always violent. • Impression, or true resemblance,—the object of all good acting. CONVERSATION. THOUGH Nature weigh our talents, and dispense To every man his modicum of sense, And conversation, in its better part, May be esteemed a gift, and not an art,— Yet much depends, as in the tiller's toil, |