the object is to interest and enchain the attention of our hearers.

Under each of these heads many subdivisions might be made, and most writers, from the time of Aristotle, have thus divided them; but observing the simplest arrangement yet given, viz., that of Doctor Campbell, we shall divide the first of these topics into two parts.

In the choice of proper words to promote energy of style, we consider words as used either in their proper meaning, or as tropes, i. e., words turned from their proper meaning to a figurative sense. And our next consideration will be rhetorical figures.

1. Proper terms. In choosing such we observe, first, that it is better to use a species than a genus, where either would be sufficiently perspicuous, and that thus energy of style is promoted. Such uses are characteristic of all the sermons and addresses of our Saviour, and constitute a great charm in them. Such are all his injunctions in the Sermon on the Mount: giving to his teaching a minuteness of detail, and robbing it of that generality which is pointless and inapplicable, since men will bear to be rebuked and condemned in company with many, or as belonging to a class rather than as individuals. "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall to the ground without your Father;" is a simple statement of God's goodness.

Let the idea be generalized: suppose it to have been, "The feathered tribes are considered of small importance, and yet they share the protection of Providence;" and the energy, the searching sense of the appeal is gone. Every such paraphrase causes a loss of meaning. So, again, what a never-ceasing lesson is taught us by his special assertion, "Even the very hairs of your head are numbered." No other words could indicate this minute care equally well.

This use of special terms and particular instances for general assertions, is the distinguishing mark of all good writers: it becomes with them a habit, and contributes at once to perspicuity and energy of style. Milton is full of such descriptions as employ specific terms. His Satan sits like a cormorant," or is found at the ear of sleeping Eve "squat like a toad." To most minds this specific description is more beautiful as well as energetic. And even where the splendid imagination of Milton would idealize so as to leave great images in the mind, it is by special terms as distinguished from general that he effects his purpose. Satan's spear is as large as a Norwegian pine, fit to be the mast of some great admiral.” In his colossal proportions

"He stood

Like Teneriffe or Atlas, unremoved;

His stature reached the sky."

Reference has already been made to our Saviour's

language, but it is equally true that all parts of the Holy Scriptures are pervaded with this spirit.

St. Paul, preaching on Mars' Hill, points to the "altar," which told that they were too superstitious," raises his hand towards the magnificent Parthenon which held the splendid ivory statue of their protecting divinity, when he tells them that "God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands." In their view were those beautiful "graven images" which were the glory of Minerva's shrine, when he declared that "we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device."

Many illustrations of such a use of terms might be given from all parts of the Bible, and in each they would be found to add to the energy and vivacity of the style. In this scene at Athens the audience supplied for themselves, with their own eyes, the specific and proper objects which St. Paul's gestures and discourse displayed to them.

But there are occasions, it must in justice be observed, where we desire to make the impression fainter, and where we wish to avoid, for known reasons, an absolute allusion or a vivid impression.

This is often done to avoid a disgusting or shocking impression, and is shown in the use of such words in

times of rebellion, as to suffer instead of to be executed, and homicide instead of murder, misfortune for crime, in which cases a certain sympathy with humanity in its suffering, leads to the softening of the offensive word.

Such, too, is the language of innuendo, where it is designed, by a sweeping general assertion, in reality to reach one, and only one particular example, without so exciting the anger or self-love of the individual aimed at, as to cause him to repel and punish the assailant.

While, then, it is evident that a certain latitude is allowed to an author in this regard, the general rule remains the same; and as it has been clearly expressed, the more general the terms are, the picture is the fainter; the more special they are, the brighter.” Teachers, especially moralists, are apt to err by reasoning with abstractions, by warning their pupils against vice and crime in general, and urging them to a career of virtue, which shall be honourable here, and bring them to glory hereafter. The vagueness of these terms is neither instructive nor impressive; the honest learner only knows that there is something to be striven for, opposed by something to be shunned, and remains without guidance or shield against the real and special evils which surround his path. Dr. Whately applies this, and justly, to "inexperienced preachers," of whom the world is full, and who should learn in order to teach.

(96.) Of Rhetorical Tropes.

By a trope (Greek, rpenw, to turn,) is meant a term turned out of its proper significance, and applied to another; thus, if we call a statesman the pillar of the state, we turn the word pillar from its proper original meaning of a prop to a building, and apply it to a man.

Tropes, or figures of speech, grow out of the readiness of the human mind to find resemblances or analogies between things not immediately connected; sometimes, indeed, between ideas as unconnected as mind and body, nature and art. Our language, like most others, is full of these figures of speech; our ordinary conversation abounds with them; the plainest and driest discourse cannot be constructed without them; and when we rise to the consideration of what interests and pleases us in poetry, we find that figures of speech have usurped the place of plain language, even in the works of those who affect entire baldness and self-denial in the use of language. Thus Wordsworth, the chief of the revolutionary school of modern poetry, began a striking sentence, in unfigurative

verse:

-The good die first;"

but immediately fell upon a combination of comparison and metaphor in the lines which follow: