What can preserve my life, or what destroy?
An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave-
Legions of angels can't confine me there."-Young.
"Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes,
Men would be angels, angels would be gods;
Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell,

Aspiring to be angels, men rebel."-Pope.

To antithesis belongs also CONTRAST, which places not only the thoughts, but also descriptions in opposition to each, in order more fully to illustrate the object.

Ex.-"A light wife makes a heavy husband.”
"One man there was-and many such you might
Have met-who never had a dozen thoughts
In all his life, and never changed their course; ·

Lived where his father lived-died where he died;
Lived happy, and died happy, and was saved.
Be not surprised. He loved and served his God.
There was another, large of understanding,
Of memory infinite, of judgment deep;
Who knew all learning, and all science knew;

And yet in misery lived, in misery died.

**

Because he wanted holiness of heart."-Pollok.

132. COMPARISON traces the resemblance which one object bears to another in certain respects, whether in point of the external qualities which each. possesses, or in reference to the similarity of feeling excited in the mind, in order to make it better understood or to improve our conception of it.

Ex. "Qualis, ubi abruptis fugit præsepia vinclis
Tandem liber equus, campoque potitus aperto;
Aut ille in pastus armentaque tendit equarum,
Aut assuetus aquæ perfundi flumine noto
Emicat, arrectisque fremit cervicibus alte
Luxurians, luduntque jubæ per colla, per armos."

"On the other side,

Incensed with indignation, Satan stood
Unterrified, and like a comet burned,
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge
In the arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war.

Virg.

Each cast at the other, as when two black clouds
With heaven's artillery fraught, come rattling on
Over the Caspian, then stand front to front
Hovering a space, till winds the signal blow

To join their dark encounter in mid-air."-Milton. "The music of Carryl was like the memory of joys that are past, pleasant and mournful to the soul."-Ossian.

"Pleasant are the words of the song, and lovely are the tales of other times. They are like the dew of the morning on the hill of roses, when the sun is faint on its side, and the lake is settled and blue in the vale."-Ossian.

133. Comparisons ought to be clear, just, dignified, new, and not too frequent, especially in prose. Ex. "So saying, a noble stroke he lifted high,

Which hung not, but so swift with tempest fell
On the proud crest of Satan, that no sight,

Nor motion of quick thought, less could his shield,
Such ruin intercept: Ten paces huge

He back recoiled; the tenth on bended knee

His massy spear upstayed; as if on earth,
Winds under ground or waters, forcing way
Side long, had pushed a mountain from his seat,
Half sunk with all his pines."—Milton.

They are clear when the object of comparison is better known, or more easily conceived or imagined than the subject which it is intended to illustrate.

Ex.

"She never told her love,

But let concealment, like a worm in the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek. She pined in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy,

She sat, like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief.”—Shakspeare.

"The troops, exulting, sat in order round,
And beaming fires illumined all the ground,
As when the moon, resplendent orb of night,
O'er heaven's pure azure sheds her sacred light;
When not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene,
And not a breath disturbs the deep serene;
Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole;
O'er the dark trees a yellow verdure spread,
And tip with silver every mountain's head.
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies,
The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight,
Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light,
So many flames before proud Ilion blaze

And lighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays.”
Pope's Homer.

They are just when the resemblance between the objects is natural and easily apprehended by the

mind.

They are dignified and noble when they are drawn

from objects which inspire elevated ideas, or which have nothing mean or low in them.

Ex. The following comparison is neither just nor dignified. It compares Amata driven by the furies to a boy whipping his top.

"Ceu quondam torto volitans sub verbere turbo,
Quem pueri magno in gyro vacua atria circum
Intenti ludo exercent:"-Virg.

The reader may form his own judgment respecting the following comparison:

"Like as a mastiffe, having at a bay

A salvage bull, whose cruell hornes doe threat
Desperate daunger if he them assay,

Traceth his ground, and round about doth beat, To spy when he may some advantage get, The whiles the beast doth rage and loudly rore; So did the squire, the whiles the carle did fret And fume in his disdainful mynd the more, And oftentimes by Turmagant and Mahound swore.” Spenser. They are new when they are not drawn from trite or worn out subjects, or when they are so they may be made to look new by the peculiar turn of the thought or expression given to them.

And, lastly, they are faulty when the resemblance between the objects compared is so slight that it requires an effort of the mind to discover it, or when they are so frequent that they fatigue the mind and dazzle it by their continued glitter.

134. ALLUSION awakens the idea of an object without expressly mentioning it. An allusion may be drawn from history, from fable, from morals, from some celebrated writer.

Ex-Ulysses, in the following lines, makes an allusion to one of the ancestors of Ajax, who had been banished for fratricide.

"Nam mihi Laertes pater est, Arcesius illi,

Jupiter huic neque in his quisquam damnatus," etc.

Ovid.

"Certain renard Gascon, d'autres disent Normand."
La Fontaine.

Boileau, speaking of Bourdaloue, says, "Desmares, dans St. Roch, n'auraient pas mieux prêché." Xe. Sat.

135. PERIPHRASIS or CIRCUMLOCUTION expresses in many words what might have been comprised in fewer. It is used,

1. To ornament an idea or image.

Ex. "But yonder comes the powerful king of day,
Rejoicing in the east.”—Thomson.

"Et jam summa procul villarum culmina fumant Majoresque cadunt altis de montibus umbræ."-Virg. 2. To avoid a low or vulgar thought or expression.

Ex. Thus to avoid the introduction of so unpoetical a name as hog or pig into elegant poetry, Dellile calls him "l'animal que se nourrit de glandes."

3. To conceal an idea, or to shun a word which it would be painful to express, or difficult to be understood.

Ex. "Olli dura quies oculos et ferreus urget

Somnus; in æternum clanduntur lumina noctem."

Virg.

"Fecerunt id servi Milonis, neque imperante neque præ