CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



He sung and fluted gayly all the day, 

 He was as fresh as is the month of May* 



Metaphors are a species of comparison, where 

 the likeness is not formally expressed, but implied 

 by the actual use of the comparison in the room 

 of the original expression. The necessity for 

 metaphors arises from the difficulty of inventing 

 terms in any other way for the more abstract and 

 subtle kind of notions. Thus, we speak of the 

 ' head of a state,' the ' tail of a party/ the ' stream 

 of time,' 'a sea of troubles,' 'the light of the world.' 

 Like all other kinds of comparisons, of which 

 many species have been detailed by rhetoricians, 

 metaphors may conduce either to clearness and 

 force of meaning, or to ornament merely. 



Epigram. 



Epigram is pre-eminently an attribute of style, 

 and not at all a quality of the thought to be ex- 

 pressed. It is a species of play upon words cal- 

 culated to surprise and impress the mind in an 

 agreeable way. It comprises antitheses, apparent 

 contradictions, similarities, and contrasts of sound 

 and sense ; paradoxes, alliterations, puns, and 

 some of the most striking felicities of metrical 

 composition. 'When you have nothing to say, 

 say it,' is an epigram ; likewise, ' I am content, 

 and I don't like my situation.' Butler, Pope, and 

 Dryden abound in this peculiarity. A well-known 

 passage of Barrow, professedly illustrative of wit, 

 applies almost exclusively to what we here under- 

 stand by ' epigram.' 



Metonymy Circumstance the Picturesque. 



Metonymy is the name given to an effect pro- 

 duced by departing from the strict use of language, 

 for the sake of singling out prominent circum- 

 stances as, ' the city was put to the sword] in- 

 stead of ' the inhabitants of the city were slain.' 

 Cromwell is said to have set up parliaments ' by 

 the stroke of his pen, and scattered them with the 

 breath of his month! Instead of the main agent 

 in producing an effect, some collateral or associ- 

 ated object is chosen, so as to make a more vivid 

 image than a strictly accurate statement could 

 produce. 



Of the many figures of speech enumerated by 

 the ancient rhetoricians, Metaphor and Metonymy 

 are the only ones that express wide and compre- 

 hensive meanings ; especially when Metaphor is 

 generalised into comparison, and Metonymy into 

 associated circumstance. These two ideas of com- 

 parison and contiguous association ally themselves 

 with the two fundamental laws of the human 

 intellect, expressed by the terms Similarity and 

 Contiguity, and to this they owe the comprehen- 

 siveness of their grasp. 



The choice of ' circumstance,' or of collateral 

 particulars suitable to bear out the meaning of a 

 principal term, or to assist in illustrating an idea, 

 is a main point in literary art Thus, to take an 

 instance in description : 



' The whining school-boy, with his satchel 

 And shining morning face, creeping like snail 

 Unwillingly to school.' 



Or, still better, the illustration of the fop : 



' And as the soldiers bare dead bodies by, 

 He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly, 

 To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse 

 Betwixt the wind and his nobility.' 

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As another instance of circumstances powerfully- 

 built up for effect, take the following from Milton : 



' Nor uglier follow the night-hag, when called 

 In secret, riding through the air she comes, 

 Lured with the smell of infant blood, to dance 

 With Lapland witches, while the lab'ring moon 

 Eclipses at their charms.' 



The Picturesque in literary execution is attained 

 when the expression has been so conceived as to 

 bring out a vivid picture : 



' The sixth age shifts 

 Into the lean and slippered pantaloon! 



To make words paint, as if with brush and 

 canvas, is a very high effort of literary art ; seeing 

 that their nature is to drop a series of impressions 

 into the mind, and not to hoist instantaneously 

 an expanded scene before the view. 



Sublimity. 



This effect is produced by an expression of 

 extreme power, grandeur, loftiness, expansion. 

 Strength carried to its utmost pitch, and sup- 

 ported by adequate language, becomes sublime. 

 When large and overpowering objects are set 

 forth in terms equal to their character, they ex- 

 cite the emotion of sublimity. The Paradise 

 Lost is full of sublime effects : were it not so 

 with such a subject, it would be unendurable. 

 As an example oif a single stroke, we cannot do 

 better than quote the following image from Shak- 

 speare, which has never been surpassed as an 

 expression by ' circumstance ' of utter ruin : 



' Though the treasure 

 Of nature's germins tumble all together 

 E'en till destruction sicken : answer me to what I ask 

 you.' 



Beauty. 



This is a very wide word, and if used in its 

 utmost latitude, would cover everything included 

 in artistic effect in general, so that the other par- 

 ticulars under the present head would be but 

 varieties or forms of beauty. The beauties of 

 style are unquestionably for the most part the 

 result of harmony, fitness, and keeping in the 

 various parts of the composition. The adapta- 

 tion of the whole to its end, the order and har- 

 mony of all the particulars, the suiting of the style 

 to the matter, and of the sound to the sense, all 

 combined with the choice of images pictorially 

 beautiful, and of words and cadences musically 

 melodious, are the leading particulars that con- 

 stitute the beautiful in literary art When com- 

 position, considered as a fine art, perfectly succeeds 

 in its aim, it must needs be beautiful. There may, 

 however, be partial beauties, and beauties of many 

 kinds. Every writer who has ever attained to the 

 rank of a great classic, has owed a part of his 

 success to the circumstance that his composition 

 was such as to be considered a work of art. For 

 the highest beauties of style, we need only refer 

 to Milton, Massinger, Addison, or Cowley, among 

 the many great examples in English literature. 



Pathos. 



This is an effect depending on the tender si 

 ceptibility of human nature, on which are founde 

 the warm affections of the heart, and which flov 

 freely on occasions of misery, calamity, and pair 



