understood to assert that he is wise. 'I cannot praise such conduct' means that I despise it. The opposite of this figure is HYPERBOLE (a Greek word signifying excess) by which more is said of a subject than is expected to be believed. It is EXAGGERATION. The last verse of St. John's Gospel,

"And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written".

is a real Hyperbole. Indeed, Exaggeration is a prominent feature in Eastern poetry; and it is perhaps in imitation of this style that the following lines are to be found in the works of one of the first poets of the present day:

"Yet, one relief this glance of former years

Brought, mingled with its pain,-tears, floods of tears,
Long frozen at her heart, but now like rills
Let loose in spring-time from the snowy hills,
And gushing warm, after a sleep of frost,
Through valleys where their flow had long been lost."
Lalla Rookh.

Such extravagant similes will be pardoned in Mr. Moore; but we should not exhibit them to younger poets as objects of imitation.

Hyperbole ought to be very carefully as well

as sparingly used; for it is requisite that the mind of the hearer, as well as that of the speaker, should be strongly excited, else it degenerates into Bombast. It is usually the flash of an overheated imagination, and is seldom consistent with the cold canons of criticism. The following flight corresponds more with the enthusiasm of youth than with the sobriety of age:

"Too long hath War-War the blackest fiend that ever rose from the bottomless pit-ravaged the globe and desolated the nations. Every page of history is written with human blood. Where is the field which hath not been the scene of battle, murder and death? Where is the plain, however extensive, which hath not been one grave? Are not the mountains swelled to double their height with human clay? Where is the river whose course hath not been choked with bodies-whose stream hath not rolled purple to the sea, and dyed the very Ocean with man's blood, shed by men's hands?—Name the town, the city, the village, which, at one period or other, hath not been reduced to ashes, whose smoke hath not eclipsed the sun at noon,-whose flames have not illuminated the brows of midnight!"

HYPOTYPOSIS, OR IMAGERY.

Hypotyposis (from the Greek hypo, under, and

typos, an image,) is the representation of what we speak, as if it existed before our eyes. What is absent is brought near, and what is past, or predicted in the future, becomes present. The Imagery of Goldsmith, when describing the effects of a compulsory emigration, furnishes a beautiful example:

"Even now,

the devastation is begun,

And half the business of destruction done;

Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand,

I see the rural Virtues leave the land.

Down, where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail
That idly waiting flaps with every gale,
Downward they move, a melancholy band,
Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand.
Contented Toil, and hospitable Care,

And kind connubial Tenderness, are there."

That sort of Imagery which is addressed solely to the eye is often transferred to the canvas: the following is beyond the power of the painter:

-“Thanks, righteous God!-Revenge shall yet be

mine;

Yon flashing lightning gave the dreadful sign.
I see the flames of heavenly anger hurl'd,

I hear your thunders shake a guilty world.”

Dying Negro.

PROSOPOPOEIA, OR PERSONIFICATION.

APOSTROPHE.

Prosopopoeia (Greek prosopon, a person, and

poico, I make) is equivalent to the Latin derivative Personification. It is that figure by which the absent, or the dead, are brought before us on the stage, and by which inanimate and even abstract existences are raised to the rank of living beings. In a general sense, Personification is a species of Metaphor, and that species, too, which appears in every line of literary composition; for the nominative of every active verb, if it be conceived at all, must necessarily be considered as an active existence. But, we do not always take the trouble so to conceive it; and it is only when such Metaphors are protruded upon our notice that we acknowledge the Figure and give it the name of Personification.

The English language, in its modern state, is peculiarly favourable to this figure of speech. The substantives that have no life, having naturally no gender, become animated the moment they are metaphorically endowed with sex. 'Virtue is its own reward,' although metaphorical, is not striking; but Virtue is her own reward' is an obvious, and complete, Personification. Examples of this figure are to be found everywhere. It is the ornament of Prose and the soul of Poetry. In the following lines, Learning, Existence and Time are spoken of as living beings: "When Learning's triumph o'er her barbarous foes

First rear'd the stage, immortal Shakspeare rose.

Each change of many-colour'd life he drew;
Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new:
Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign;
And panting Time toil'd after him in vain.”

Johnson.

The poets, in all ages, have personified abstractions, and invented tales concerning beings of their own creation. Such were the deities of Greece and Rome, whose fabulous adventures constitute the whole system of Classic Mythology. The imaginary personages of English poetry (when the objects are the same) usually assume the genders that were given them by the Greeks and Romans; but, when an object is to be personified for which there is no acknowledged precedent, we give it that sex which we judge to have the greater metaphorical congruity with its nature. These rules, however, though general, are not of universal application; for, in this respect, writers of equal character are, occasionally, inconsistent with one another. In languages, such as the French and Italian, where every substantive is either masculine or feminine, the personification of abstractions is made without any hazard as to sex; but it is otherwise in the English of the present day: The French noun Jalousie, for example, is feminine, and remains so when she is ranked with the infernal Demons. Darwin takes the masculine gender: