nations together; is to be the chief popularizer of science to the common people; is to set Christ forth, more than ever, as the grand specific for time and for eternity; is to study him as the prime model of oratory, and to point to him as the pole-star in morals and in religion.

The full treatment of this great figure, Inversion, requires that mention be made of the Periodic Sentence. Every periodic sentence has as its essence the suspension of the meaning till the close of the sentence:

"Ape-born, not God-born, is what the Atheists say of man," is our example. This structure excites anticipation, and keeps up curiosity till the denouement. The key-word, "man," is at the end of the sentence. It is evident, therefore, that the periodic structure implies inversion. Be much on your guard against making such sentences lengthy, if you wish to avoid tiring your readers or hearers. Hooker, Sir Thomas Browne, Dr. Samuel Johnson, De Quincey, are periodic writers of eminence. The early writers tend too much to long sentences. Practice the mixture of short and long; and also Dean Swift's definition:

"Proper words in proper places is the true definition of a style;"

which, if it be so, shows us how important must inversion be; as see in Archbishop Whately's example of the periodic formation:

"One of the most celebrated of men, for wisdom and for prosperity, was Solomon."

CHAPTER VI.

FIGURES OF RHETORIC.

PART FIRST.

Simile.

WE rejoice that the most important division of our theme is at last before us-Figures of Rhetoric. Indignantly do we protest against the common definition of a rhetorical figure: "An intentional deviation from the ordinary or literal application of words." What deviation from ordinary or literal application in the cry of David?

"O my son, Absalom; my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom! my son, my son!" —an accumulation of figures bursting from the heart; a cry that has re-echoed century after century in the sympathizing soul of every reader. The common definition needs to be greatly widened; it is the result of unworthy ideas of rhetoric long prevalent, and greatly aids to uphold these ideas on the throne. Such a definition as the following is demanded:

"A figure of rhetoric is a deviation from the literal or from the more ordinary application of words; or it is some turn of expression prompted by the mind in intense action."

Figures are thus at once vindicated, as by a magic stroke, from the usual charge of surfaceness. They must often be among the simplest forms of speech; they are seen to well up from the deepest inward fountains. We become convinced that the study of them on sound principles must form one of the most important departments

of criticism; must bring us into connection with the grandeur and versatility of language and of mind; nay, with His glories of whom speech is the proclamation, and mind the image; while these figures are the wargear of the orator wherewith he is to conquer the world. We defend the new definition proposed, by the authority of one of the soundest thinkers of our time, Theremin, in his great work, "Eloquence a Virtue:"

"This change in the position and movements of the orator, peculiar to moral activity of all sorts, can be perceived in the case of the activity of the orator only in the thoughts and the words, and in their constantly varying turns; since the orator makes use of thoughts and words only in order to the realization of his idea. These turns are the so-called rhetorical figures; an expression which must not be taken to denote mere ornaments coldly and artificially contrived to set off the discourse (to which the expression might lead), but lively movements in thought and language, prompted by the imagination under the guidance of rhetorical affection."

In admirable agreement with this profounder view is the fact that, although Demosthenes despised the showy, the merely ornamental, and has a style the farthest possible from poetical flourishes, yet the ancients boasted that he never brought forward a thought that did not throw his language into some figure.

Of figures of rhetoric it has been usual to say that there are two kinds: figures of words and figures of things a distinction worse than useless. The true doctrine is that all rhetorical figures show us some new moulding of words in accordance with some actual relation between things outward one to another; or between an outward and a mental thing; or at the bidding of some emotion or inward thing; or between two or more mental things; so that every figure of rhetoric is at once a figure of words and a figure of things. Even alliteration, wherein two or more words placed near each other be

gin with the same letter, produces a reality, a delicate rhyme at the beginning of words instead of at the end; as in Pope, of a pedant:

"A bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,

With loads of learned lumber in his head."

So, too, the pun is more than mere words; for in it there must be a difference of sense, and not merely a similarity of sound. Voltaire and Lord Chesterfield met at a gay party in Paris, where shone several French ladies with cheeks artificially radiant:

"My lord," said Voltaire, "what think you of our French beauties?"

Replied Chesterfield:

"I am no judge of paintings."

Some time after, in London, an English lady, outrageously rouged, was paying the French wit great attention. Whispered Chesterfield to him:

"Take care you be not captivated."-" No fear," replied the lively Frenchman; "I shall not allow myself to be taken by an English craft under French colors."

Even in Gay's new song of " New Similes," points of resemblance, fantastic yet real, are caught at:

"My passion is as mustard strong;

I sit all sober sad;

Drunk as a piper all day long,

Or like a March hare mad."

Many a false and bloody dogma has been bolstered up by misinterpreting figures; how important, then, to understand the laws by which they should be interpreted. When the literal meaning of an expression is incompatible with plain human experience of the nature of things, common-sense compels us to receive the expression as

figurative, if the Figurative lies at the door. We meet in the Bible this:

"The little hills leap on every side."

We know that the hills can not leap; we have no difficulty in seeing that they leap figuratively. In another place we find

"I am the door."

Our knowledge of things tells us that the Great, Lowly One never was a plank of wood used as a door; we bethink us of a point of resemblance between Him and a door: both give entrance. We know how metaphors abound in Holy Writ. We have recourse to metaphor when one says, pointing to a portrait on the wall:

"This is Washington."

There is no riddle; "is" very frequently means "represents;" that usage is very common in the Bible. When we read,

"This is my body,"

we trample on the laws of Nature, on the laws of language, especially on the laws of Bible language, when we force these very plain. words to tell us that dough hath become God. Many excellent people have fallen into that opinion. Yet in the Scripture the word "is" never means "becomes," or "is changed into;" but very often it signifies "represents." The scientific, the commonsense interpretation of one figurative utterance would sweep from the earth much of religious error.

To be true to Nature and to matter of fact is, then, one of the first excellences of a writer. Mrs. Dunlop, the early patroness of Burns, had an old housekeeper who was astonished at the attentions her mistress paid to a plowman. To remove this prejudice, Mrs. D. made her read a MS. copy of that perfect poem, "The Cotter's