490 MUSCULAR MOTION. 



of it, a dental, or both together, are used to express the first infantile 

 words "papa" and "mamma;" but it is scarcely necessary to say, that 

 the child, when it first pronounces the combinations, attaches no such 

 meaning to them as the parent fondly imagines. 



There is a rhetorical variety of onomatopoeia, frequently considered 

 under the head of alliteration, but by no means deriving its chief beau- 

 ties from that source. It happens when a repetition of the same letter 

 concurs with the sonorous imitations already described ; as in the fol- 

 lowing line in one of the books of the ^Eneid of Virgil; 



" Luctentes ventos tempesZatesque sonoras," 



in which the frequent occurrence of the letter of firmness and stability, 

 T, communicates the idea of the striking of the wind on objects. 

 In the "Andromaque" of Racine, a line of this character occurs: 



" Pour qui sont ces serpens qui sifflent sur vos tetes," 1 



in which the sound impressed on the ear has some similarity to the 

 hissing of serpents: and in the " Poeme des Jar dins" of the Abb De- 

 lille, there is the following example: 



" Soil que sur /e /imon une riviere /ente, 

 Derou/e en paix les pZis de son onde indoJente ; 

 Soil qu'a travers les rocs un torrent en courroux 

 Se brise avec fracas." 2 



In the first two lines, the liquid L denotes the tranquil flow of the 

 river ; whilst in the two last, the letter of roughness and asperity, R, 

 resembles the rushing of the stream like a torrent. The remarks 

 already made will have exhibited the radical difference in the ideas 

 communicated by the sound of those letters, by the common consent 

 of languages. In the German this variety of expression is often had 

 recourse to; and by none more frequently than by the poet Burger. 3 

 The English language affords a few specimens, but not as many as 

 might be imagined. Of simple alliteration there are many ; some that 

 give delight; others that do violence to the suggestive principle ; but 

 there are comparatively few where the words are selected, which by 

 their sound convey to the mind the idea to be communicated. The 

 galloping of horses may be assimilated by a frequent succession of 

 short syllables; slow, laborious progression by the choice of long; but 

 in the onomatopoeia in question, the words themselves must consist of 

 such a collocation of one consonant, or of particular consonants, as 

 adds force to the idea communicated by the words collectively. Of 

 this, we have a good example in the lines before cited, in which the 



1 " For whom are those serpents that hiss o'er your heads ?" 



2 Which may be translated as follows : 



" If o'er deep slime a river laves 

 In peace the folds of its sluggish waves; 

 Or o'er the rocks a torrent breaks 

 In wrath obstrep'rous." 



3 Art. Alliteration, and Onomatopoeia, in Encyclopedie, par Diderot, D'Alembert, &c., and 

 in Allgemeine Deutsche Real-Encyclopadie fur die gebildeten Stiinde, (Conversations Lexi- 

 kon } ) Aufl. 8, Leipz., 1837. 



