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inative, and before or between the auxiliary and the verb. (Illus. 7. and 8. p. 89.)

Example. "I have formerly, with a good deal of attention, considered the subject upon which you command me to communicate my thoughts." This is, perhaps, not inferior to the natural order. "" I have formerly considered, with a good deal of attention, the subject on which you command me to communicate my thoughts."

247. The nominative is placed after the verb. But this inversion is restricted almost entirely to poetry, where it has often a pleasing effect; witness the following examples from the fourth Book of Paradise Lost.

"Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun,
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glist'ring with dew; fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers, and sweet the coming on
Of grateful evening mild."

248. The placing of the nominative after the verb is one of the most easy inversions of which our language is susceptible; and, as it affords an agreeable variety, and is perfectly consistent with perspicuity, it should not be permitted to fall into disuse. It was formerly frequent in prose, and still appears in that species of composition with dignity and grace.

Example 1. "There exists not in nature a more miserable animal, than a bad man at war with himself."

2. "In splendid robes appeared the queen."

3. The following quotations are found in Hume's History of England. Speaking of Charles I. "He had formed one of the most illustrious characters of his age, had not the extreme narrowness of his genius in every thing but war sullied the lustre of his other talents." Had the limitations on the prerogative been in his time quite fixed, his integrity had made him regard as sacred the boundaries of the constitution."

249. Another very frequent inversion, in poetry, stations the subject in the beginning of a sentence, and sometimes throws in a circumstance between the subject and its verb. Example 1. The first verses in the Iliad are thus translated by Pope: "Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring Of woes unnumber'd, heavenly Goddess, sing."

Example 2. Paradise Lost opens in a similar manner:

"Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste

Brought death into the world, and all our woe,

With loss of Eden, till one greater man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, heavenly muse!"

Example 3. Thomson's Autumn commences in the following strain :
"Crown'd with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf,
While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain,
Comes jovial on, the Doric reed once more
Well-pleas'd I tune."

Illus. This inversion, though proper and beautiful in poetry, appears scarcely tolerable in prose. (See Art. 171. in the example, from Gordon's Translation of Tacitus.)

250. A noun preceded by a preposition very frequently appears before a verb.

Example.

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By these we acquired our liberties," said the Scotch nobles, laying their hands on their swords, "and with these will we defend them."**

Analysis. This order is much preferable in point of emphasis to the natural one. How tame is the natural order! "We acquired our liberties by these, and we will defend them with these." (See Art. 124. Illus. 20. p. 80.)

Schol. 1. These inversions deviate little from the order of ideas, or the grammatical order of the words; and, though they suspend the meaning, they hurt not the perspicuity. This analogy between the succession of ideas, and the arrangement of words, is one of the principal beauties of modern languages, which the ancients relinquish in order to attain other beauties in point of melody; and it is perhaps impossible to propose any general principle by which the preference of these beauties may be decided. (Obs. Art. 27.)

2. The ancients would complain, perhaps, of the tameness and simplicity of our arrangement, while we might reprehend the artifice and obscurity of their inversion. They would reprobate our neglect of harmony, while we might expose their apparent attachment to sound more than to sense. Such, at least, is the power of habit, that a period of Latin or Greek, arranged in grammatical order, would excite disgust, and a period of English in the order of Greek or Latin would appear ridiculous or unintelligible.t

* Robertson's History of Scotland.

In conjunction with these articles on Inversion, the student should peruse Chapter IV. Book I.

BOOK IV.

OF FIGURES.

CHAPTER I.

OF THE CHARACTER AND ADVANTAGES OF FIGURES.

251. FIGURES, in general, may be described to be that language, which is prompted either by the imagination, or by the passions. (Chap. III. B. I.)

252. Rhetoricians commonly divide them into two great classes; Figures of words, and figures of thought.

A

253. Figures of words, are commonly called TROPES. trope consists in a word's being employed to signify something that is different from its original and primitive meaning; so that if you alter the word, you destroy the figure.

Illus. Thus, in the sentence, "Light ariseth to the upright in darkness;" the trope consists in " light and darkness," being not meant literally, but substituted for comfort and adversity, on account of some resemblance or analogy which light and darkness are supposed to bear to these conditions of life. (See Illus. 2. Art. 19.)

254. Figures of thought, suppose the words to be used in their proper and literal meaning, and the figure to consist in the turn of the thought. They appear in exclamations, interrogations, apostrophes, and comparisons; where, though you vary the words that are used, or translate them from one language into another, you may, nevertheless, still preserve the same figure in the thought. (Illus. 3. Art. 19.)

Obs. This distinction, however, of no great use; as nothing can be built upon it in practice: neither is it always very clear. It is of little importance, whether we give to some particular mode of expression the name of a trope, or of a figure; provided we remember, that figurative language always imports some colouring of the imagination, or some emotion of passion, expressed in our style: and, perhaps, figures of imagination, and figures of passion, might be a more useful distribution of the subject. But, without insisting on any artificial divisions, it will be more useful, that we inquire into the advantages which language derives from figures of speech.

255. First, TROPES, or figures, enrich language, and render it more copious. By their means, words and phrases are multiplied for expressing all sorts of ideas; for describing even the minutest differences; the nicest shades and colours of thought; which no language could possibly do by proper words alone, without assistance from tropes. (Art. 21.)

256. Secondly, they bestow dignity upon style. The familiarity of common words, to which our ears are much accustomed, tends to degrade style. When we want to adapt our language to the tone of an elevated subject, we should be greatly at a loss, if we could not borrow assistance from figures; which, properly employed, have a similar effect on language, with what is produced by the rich and splendid dress of a person of rank; to create respect, and to give an air of magnificence to him who wears it. Assistance of this kind is often needed in prose compositions; but poetry could not subsist without it. Hence, figures form the constant language of poetry. (Art. 21.)

Illus. 1. To say, that "the sun rises," is trite and common: but it becomes a magnificent image when expressed as Thomson has done :

But yonder comes the powerful king of day,
Rejoicing in the east.

2. To say, that " All men are subject alike to death," presents only a vulgar idea; but it rises and fills the imagination when painted thus by Horace :

Pallida mors æquo pulsat pede, pauperum tabernas

Regumque turres.*

Or,

Omnes eodem cogimur; omnium,
Versatur urna, serius, ocyus,
Sors exitura, et nos in eternum
Exilium impositura cymbæ.†

257. In the third place, FIGURES give us the pleasure of enjoying two objects presented together without confusion, to our view; the principal idea, that is, the subject of the discourse, along with its accessory, which gives it the figurative dress. We see one thing in another, as Aristotle express es it; which is always agreeable to the mind. For there is nothing with which the fancy is more delighted, than with comparisons and resemblances of objects; and all

*With equal pace impartial fate

Knocks at the palace, as the cottage gate.

We all must tread the paths of fate;
And ever shakes the mortal urn,

Whose lot embarks us, soon or late,

On Charon's boat; ah! never to return. Francis.

tropes are founded upon some relation or analogy between one thing and another..

Illus. When, for instance, in place of " youth," we say, the "morning of life;" the fancy is immediately entertained with all the resembling circumstances which presently occur between these two objects. At one moment, we have before us a certain period of human life, and a certain time of the day, so related to each other, that the imagination plays between them with pleasure, and contemplates two similar objects, in one view, without embarrassment or confusion. Not only 80, but,

258. In the fourth place, FIGURES are attended with this farther advantage, of giving us frequently a much clearer and more striking view of the principal object, than we could have if it were expressed in simple terms, and divested of its accessory idea.

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Illus. 1. This is, indeed, their principal advantage, in virtue of which they are very properly said to illustrate a subject, or to throw light upon it. For they exhibit the object on which they are employed, in a picturesque form; they can render an abstract conception, in some degree, an object of sense; they surround it with such circumstances as enable the mind to lay hold of it steadily, and to contemplate it fully. Example. Those persons," says one," who gain the hearts of most people, who are chosen as the companions of their softer hours, and their reliefs from anxiety and care, are seldom persons of shining qualities, or strong virtues: it is rather the soft green of the soul on which we rest our eyes, that are fatigued with beholding more glaring objects." Here, by a happy allusion to a colour, the whole conception is in one word conveyed clear and strong to the mind.

Illus. 2. By a well chosen figure, even conviction is assisted, and the impression of a truth upon the mind made more lively and forcible than it would otherwise be.

Examples. "When we dip too deep in pleasure, we always stir a sediment that renders it impure and noxious:"*"A heart boiling with violent passions, will always send up infatuating fumes to the head." An image that presents so much congruity between a moral and a sensible idea, serves, like an argument from analogy, to enforce what the author asserts, and to induce belief.

Illus. 3. Besides, whether we are endeavouring to raise sentiments of pleasure or aversion, we can always heighten the emotion by the figures which we introduce; leading the imagination to a train, either of agreeable or disagreeable, of exalting or debasing ideas, corespondent to the impression which we seek to make. When we want to render an object beautiful or magnificent, we borrow images from all the most beautiful or splendid scenes of nature; we thereby naturally throw a lustre over our object; we enliven the reader's mind, and dispose him to go along with us, in the gay and pleasing impressions which we give him of the subject. This effect of figures is happily touched in the following lines of Dr. Akenside, and illustrated by a very sublime figure:

* Dr. Young.

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