RHETORIC.
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names; although the general run of these performancesunder the name of Lives, Tales, Adventures, &c. are of acharacter, that, did they not merit reprehension, would bebeneath contempt; from the encouragement they afford toidleness, dissipation, and other vicious principles which theyare calculated to inculcate in the weak portion of humanity.
Of Figurative Language .—Figures are defined to be thatlanguage, which is either suggested by imagination or thepassions, and are generally divided by rhetoricians into twochief classes; i.e. figures of words, and figures of thought.The former are called Tropes, and consist in a word beingused to signify something which is different from its originalmeaning, thus :—light is used for moral purity, in this ex-pression, “ light ariseth to the upright in darkness.” Shouldthe word be altered, the figure is destro)'ed. The tropehere consists in light and darkness; not being taken literally,but meant to express comfort and adversity, to which con-ditions of life they are presumed to bear some resemblance.The other class, called figures of thought, supposes tljefigure to consist in the sentiment only, whilst the words areused in their literal signification, as in exclamations, inter-rogations, apostrophes, and comparisons; where, althoughthe words are varied, or even translated from one languageinto another, the same figure is still preserved.
Tropes maybe said to derive their original from the povertyof language; whence, perhaps, the cause of the richly figurativelanguage of the oriental world, which growing up whilstlanguage was yet in infancy, many bold and highly poeticalimages were borrowed from natural objects, to express thingswhich could exist only in the mind. By w ay of explication,we should observe, that the imagination occupies so great ashare of controul over our ideas and their expression, thatthat property in the imagination of associating ideas, pre-vents our contemplating any idea singly; we have always agreat variety of associated thoughts accompanying our con-ceptions, where the associate or accessary thought oftensupercedes the principal , 3 being often employed instead of thechief conception. Thus, the growth of states bearing a natu-ral analogy to the progress of vegetable life, “ the Roman“ state was said to flourish most whilst under the government“ of Augustus .” So also is the leader of a faction comparedto that member of the body from whence all its motions arepresumed to proceed; thus Catiline was called the head ofhis faction.
We may now inquire why tropes and figures give beauty