with relation to time, Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio suffering a punishment resembles paying a debt; hence pendere pœnas. In the same manner, light may be put for glory, sunshine for prosperity, and weight for importance.

Many words, originally figurative, having by long and constant usc, lost their figurative power, are degraded to the inferior rank of proper terms. Thus the words that express the operations of the mind, have in all languages been originally figurative the reason holds in all, that when these operations came first under consideration, there was no other way of describing them but by what they resembled: it was not practicable to give them proper names, as may be done to objects that can be ascertained by sight and touch. A soft nature, jarring tempers, weight of wo, pompous phrase, beget compassion, assuage grief, break a vow, bend the eye downward, shower down curses, drown'd in tears, wrapt in joy, warm'd with eloquence, loaded with spoils, and a thousand other expressions of the like nature, have lost their figurative sense. Some terms there are that cannot be said to be either altogether figurative or altogether proper: originally figurative, they are tending to simplicity, without having lost altogether their figurative power. Virgil's Regina saucia cura, is perhaps one of these expressions with ordinary readers, saucia will be considered as expressing simply the effect of grief; but one of a lively imagination will exalt the phrase into a figure.

For epitomising this subject, and at the same time for giving a clear view of it, I cannot think of a better method, than to present to the reader a list of the several relations upon which figures of speech are commonly founded. This list I divide into two tables: one of subjects expressed figuratively, and

one of attributes.

FIRST TABLE.

Subjects expressed figuratively.

1. A word proper to one subject employed figuratively to express a resembling subject.

There is no figure of speeeh so frequent, as what is derived from the relation of resemblance. Youth, for example, is signified figuratively by the morning of life. The life of a man resembles a natural day in several particulars: the morning is the beginning of day, youth the beginning of life; the morning is cheerful, so is youth, &c. By another resemblance, a bold warrior is termed the thunderbolt of war; a multitude of troubles, a sea of troubles.

This figure, above all others, affords pleasure to the mind by a variety of beauties. Beside the beauties above mentioned, common to all sorts, it possesses in particular the beauty of a metaphor or of a simile: a figure of speech built upon resemblance, suggests always a comparison between the principal subject and the accessory; whereby every good effect of a metaphor or simile, may in a very short and lively manner, be produced by this figure of speech.

2. A word proper to the effect employed figuratively to express the cause.

Lux for the sun. Shadow for cloud. A helmet is signified by the expression glittering terror. A tree by shadow or umbrage. Hence the expression:

Nec habet Pelion umbras.

Ovid.

Where the dun umbrage hangs.

Spring, I. 1023.

A wound is made to signify an arrow;

Vulnere non pedibus te consequar.

Ovid.

There is a peculiar force and beauty in this figure the word which signifies figuratively the principal subject, denotes it to be a cause by suggesting the effect.

3. A word proper to the cause, employed figuratively to express the effect.

Boumque labores, for corn. Sorrow or grief, for

tears.

Again, Ulysses veil'd his pensive head;

Again, unmann'd, a show'r of sorrow shed,

Streaming Grief his faded cheek bedew'd.

Blindness for darkness:

Cæcis erramus in undis.

Eneid, iii. 200.

There is a peculiar energy in this figure, similar to that in the former: the figurative name denotes the subject to be an effect, by suggesting its cause.

4. Two things being intimately connected, the proper name of the one employed figuratively to signify the other.

Day for light. Night for darkness: and hence, A sudden night. Winter for a storm at sea :

Interea magno misceri murmure pontum,
Emissamque Hyemem sensit Neptunus.

Eneid, i. 128.

This last figure would be too bold for a British writer, as a storm at sea is not inseparably connected with winter in this climate.

5. A word proper to an attribute, employed figuratively to denote the subject.

Youth and beauty for those who are young and beautiful:

Youth and beauty shall be laid in dust.

Majesty for the King:

What art thou, that usurp'st this time of night
Together with that fair and warlike form,

In which the Majesty of buried Denmark
Did sometime march?

Or have ye chosen this place

After the toils of battle, to repose

Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 1.

Your weary'd virtue.

Paradise Lost.

Verdure for a green field. Summer, l. 301.

Speaking of cranes,

The pigmy nations wounds and death they bring,
And all the war descends upon the wing.

Cool age advances venerably wise.

Iliad, iii. 10.

Iliad iii. 149.

The peculiar beauty of this figure arises from suggesting an attribute that embellishes the subject, or puts it in a stronger light.

6. A complex term employed figuratively to denote one of the component parts.

Funus for a dead body. Burial for a grave.

7. The name of one of the component parts instead of the complex term.

Tæda for a marriage. The East for a country situated east from us. Jovis vestigia servat, for imitating Jupiter in general.

8. A word signifying time or place, employed figuratively to denote what is connected with it.

Clime for a nation, or for a constitution of government: hence the expression Merciful clime, Fleecy winter for snow, Seculum felix.

9. A part of the whole.

The Pole for the earth. The head for the

person: