COMPARISON,' AND OTHER FIGURES OF SPEECH.

Q. What is a Comparison?

A. A resemblance between two objects expressed in form, and pursued more fully than the nature of a metaphor admits.*

Q. Does this figure afford much pleasure? A. Yes. A happy Comparison is a sparkling ornament, adding lustre and beauty to discourse.

Q. To what two classes may all Comparisons be reduced?

A. To explaining and embellishing.

Q. What is the fundamental requisite of a Comparison?

A. That it serves to illustrate the object for the sake of which it is introduced; and to give us a stronger conception of it.

Q. What demands attention in Compari

sons ?

A. The propriety of their introduction, and the nature of the objects whence they are taken.†

*As "the actions of princes are like those great rivers, the course of which every one beholds, but their springs have been seen by iew

+ The following is a studied and affected comparison of Portius, when Lucius had bid him farewell, in Addison's Cato:

"Thus o'er the dying lamp, th' unsteady flame, Hangs quiv'ring on a point, leaps off by fits,

Q. What is the first rule relating to the objects whence comparisons should be drawn?

A. They must not be drawn from things which have too near and obvious a resemblance to the object with which we compare them.*

Q. What is the second?

A. They should not be founded on likenesses too faint and remote.

Q. What is the third ?

A. The object from which a comparison is drawn should never be an unknown object, or one of which few people can form clear ideas. Q. What is the fourth?

A. In compositions of a serious or elevated kind, similes should never be taken from low or mean objects.

Q. What is an Antithesis?

A. An opposition of Words and Thoughts; as, in want, what distress? in affluence, what satiety.

Q. What effect has the frequent use of Antithesis upon style?

A. It renders it disagreeable.

Q. Of what nature are Comparisons_and Antitheses?

And falls again, as loth to quit its hold,

Thou must not go; my soul still hovers o'er thee, And can't get loose."

* Milton's comparison of Satan's appearance after his fall, to that of the Sun, suffering an eclipse, is admirable; but of Eve, to a Woodnymph, is poor and feeble.

A. They are of a cool nature; the productions of imagination, not of passion.

Q. What is the nature of Interrogations and Exclamations?

A. They are passionate Figures; spoken to produce some powerful effect.

Q. How should exclamations be used?

A. Very sparingly. We are disgusted when called to enter into transports which there is nothing to inspire.

Q. By what means do all passionate figures of speech operate upon us?

A. By means of Sympathy.

Q. What is Sympathy?

A. A powerful principle in our nature, disposing us to enter into every feeling and passion expressed by others.

Q. To reach this, what should a writer attend to in the use of passionate figures?

A. To the manner in which nature dictates the expression of any emotion or passion; he should give his language that turn, and no other; and he should never affect the style of a passion he does not feel.

Q. What are we to think of Typographical Figures; or the arts of writers to increase the importance of words by separating them by a dash, and putting them in italics?

A. That they are useless, and should be wholly laid aside.

Q. What is Vision?

A. It is using the present tense, when de

scribing something that is past or future, as actually passing before our eyes.* Q. What is Amplification?

A. It is an artful exaggeration of all the circumstances of some object or action which we want to place in a strong light.

Q. What is a Climax ?

A. A gradual rise of one circumstance above another, until our idea be raised to the utmost

Q. What general observations may be made upon figures of speech?

A. That they are not essential to the chief beauties of composition; that, to be beautiful, they must rise naturally from the subject; that they must not be employed too frequently; and that none should attempt them without a natural genius for them.

Q. What is the foundation of all solid merit both in speaking and writing ?

A. Good sense, clear ideas, and perspicuity of language. These will always command attention.

"I seem to myself te behold this city, the ornament of the earth, and the capital of all nations, suddenly involved in one conflagration I see before me the laughtered 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 triomphing in your miseries."--Cicero.

It is a crime to put a Roman citizen in bonds; it is the height of guilt to scourge him: little less than parricide to put him to death. What name then shall I give to crucifying him?"-Cicero.

Q. What should be the endeavour of all who desire to excel in the liberal arts?

A. To know their own genius well; to follow nature; and to seek to improve, but not to force it.

GENERAL CHARACTERS OF STYLE.

Q. What connexion is there between the manner in which every writer employs words, and his manner of thinking?

A. A close one; whence there is a certain character imprinted on his style, which may be denominated his manner; commonly expressed by such general terms as strong, weak, dry, simple, affected.

Q. Do different subjects require different sorts of style ?

A. They evidently do. Treatises of philosophy ought not to be composed in the same style with orations.

Q. Whence arises one of the first and most obvious distinctions of style?

A. From an author's spreading his thoughts more or less.

Q. What does this distinction form ? A. The Concise and Diffuse styles. Q. In what consists the Concise style? A. In compressing our thoughts into the fewest possible words; employing none but