doche, and even of some of the figures of elocution, the periphrasis in particular. Sometimes we are led to this from a principle of civility, or even of affection, when the plain and direct mention of an object might either recall grief or hurt sensibility, and sometimes from ideas of decorum.

It is by a euphemism that the words deceased and departed came at first to be used instead of dead, which is no other than a synecdoche of the genus for the species; falling asleep for dying, which is a metaphor, there being an evident resemblance between sleep and death; and stopping payment for becoming bankrupt, which is a metonymy of the effect for the cause. There is, indeed, in employing this figure, the euphemism, more than in any other, a natural tendency to change. The reason may easily be deduced from the general doctrine concerning tropes, explained in the first part of this section. The frequent use of any word in this manner brings it insensibly to have all the effect of the proper term whose place it was intended to supply; no sooner is this effect produced by it, than the same principle that influenced us at first to employ it, operates with equal strength in influencing us to lay it aside, and in its stead to adopt something newer and still more remote. The excessive delicacy of the French in this respect hath given rise to expressions which it would not be easy to trace, from any known trope or figure of oratory, and which, to say the truth, have something ridiculous in their appearance. Thus a disbanded regiment is with them a reformed regiment; a cashiered officer is a reformed officer; and a man is said to reform his equipage when necessity obliges him to give it up; even the hangman, through the superabundance of their complaisance, is titled the master of the high works.* In the use of this figure among the ancients, superstition in regard to some words which were thought to be of bad omen, seems to have had as great a share as either a delicate sympathy with the feelings of others, or a very nice sense of what is decent and cleanly.

As to the nature and extent of the last source which was assigned of the euphemism, it will be proper to be a little more particular. Those things which it is indecent to express vividly are always such as are conceived to have some turpitude in them, either natural or moral. An example of this decency in expression, where the subject hath some natural turpitude, you will find in Martha's answer, as it is in the original, when our Saviour gave orders to remove the stone from the sepulchre of her brother Lazarus: Lord, by this time he smelleth, for he hath been dead four days." In our version it is somewhat indelicately, not to say indecently, rendered stinketh. Our translators have in this instance un

* Le maître des hautes œuvres.

66

† John, xi. 39, hơn ai

necessarily receded from their ordinary rule of keeping as close as possible to the letter. The synecdoche in this place answers just as well in English as in Greek; the perspicuity is such as secures the reader from the possibility of a mistake, at the same time that the expression is free from the indecency with which the other is chargeable. But if it be necessary to avoid a vivid exhibition of what appears uncleanly to the external senses, it is much more necessary in whatever may have a tendency to pollute the mind. It is not al ways the mention of vice, as such, which has this tendency. Many of the most atrocious crimes may be mentioned with great plainness without any such danger, and therefore without the smallest indecorum. What the subjects are which are in this way dangerous, it is surely needless to explain; and as every person of sense will readily conceive the truth of the general sentiment, to propose without necessity to produce examples for the elucidation of it might justly be charged with being a breach of that decency of which I am treating.

So much for the use that may be made of tropes in softening and even enervating, as well as in enlivening and invigorating the expression, though it must be owned that the occasions are comparatively few on which the former purpose can be said to be expedient.

I shall only add a few remarks concerning the catachresis, which hath, in like manner, been improperly reckoned a separate trope. The reason that I have taken no notice of it hitherto is, that it is but rarely defensible in modern languages, which require the strictest regard to propriety; and even in he few cases wherein it is defensible, it is purely so because necessary; but is seldom eligible, as it rarely contributes either to ornament or to strength. I shall explain myself by some instances.

One species of the catachresis is when words are used in a signification that is very near their ordinary meaning, but not precisely the same. Examples of this would be a high man for a tall man, a large oration for a long oration, a big genius, for a great genius. This, if anything, would be classed under the metaphor, as there is a resemblance in the import of the words. Unluckily, the word adopted is too near a coincidence with the right epithet to present an image to the fancy, at the same time that it is not entirely coincident, and therefore cannot be denominated a proper term. In this application the name catachresis is no more than another word for impropriety. Of this kind there is an example in the fifth commandment, as it runs in our version," that thy days may be long (Anglicé, many) upon the land."* It is impossible to

* Exod., xx

avoid such blunders in translating, when one aims at being literal, without attending to the different geniuses of different tongues. In original performances, they are more rarely to be met with, being just such improprieties as none but novices in the language are apt to fall into.

A second species of this figure is when words which, from their etymology, appear to be applicable solely to one kind of thing, come afterward to be applied to another, which is nearly related in its nature or design, but with which, nevertheless, the analysis of the word will not accord. This is sometimes not only excusable from necessity, as when the language doth not furnish a proper term, but sometimes also receives the sanction of general use; and in this case, whatever it was originally, it becomes proper. I shall give some examples of this in our own tongue. As it is probable that among our Saxon ancestors candle-holders were solely made of wood, they were properly denominated candlesticks; afterward, when, through an increase of wealth and luxury, such utensils were made of metal, the old name was nevertheless retained, and at first, by a catachresis, applied to these. But the application is now ratified, and the word appropriated by custom. The name inkhorn, denoting a portable case for holding ink, probably at first made only of horn, is a similar instance. In like manner, the word parricide in English, like parricida in Latin, at first perhaps signified only the murderer of his father, but hath come to be equally applied to him who murders his mother, his brother, or his sister. In all these instances there was an excuse at first from necessity, the language not affording words strictly proper; but now, having obtained the universal suffrage, which in every country gives law to language, they need no excuse. There is an instance of a catachresis of this kind in our translation of the Bible, which (not being supported by the plea of necessity) ought to be considered as a glaring impropriety: "He made the laver of brass, and the foot of it of brass, of the looking-glasses of the women. It is, however, probable that the word mirror was not in such common use then as it is now. There are a few phrases which come under the same denomination, and which, though favoured by custom, being quite unnecessary, deserve to be exploded. Such, among others, are the following: the workmanship of God for the work of God; a man-of-war for a ship of war; and a merchantman for a trading vessel. The absurdity in the last two instances is commonly augmented by the words connected in the sequel, in which, by the application of the pronouns she and her, we are made to understand that the man spoken of is a female. 1 think this gibberish ought to be left entirely to mariners, among whom, 1 suppose, it hath originated.

* Exod., xxxviii., 8.

The only remaining species of the catachresis which I can recollect at present is no other than a far-fetched and incongruous metaphor. Nothing can more justly be reduced un der this class than the application of the attributes of one cor poreal sense to the objects of another; as if we should say of a voice that it is beautiful to the ear, or of a face that it is melodious to the eye. Nothing succeeds better, as hath been observed already, than metaphors taken from the objects of sensation, to denote the objects of pure intellection; yet nothing generally succeeds worse than metaphors that are only transferred from sense to sense. I say generally, because such is the omnipotence of fashion in respect of language that it is capable of conciliating us even to such applications. Thus the term sweet belongs properly to the sense of tasting alone; yet it hath been transferred to the sense of smelling, of hearing, and of seeing. We say a sweet scent, sweet melody, a sweet prospect. The word soft, in like manner, belonged originally to the sense of touching, and to it only; yet it hath been applied metaphorically, and (as we learn by the event) successfully, to other senses. Thus we talk of a soft whisper, and Pope speaks of the soft-eyed virgin. Customary applications at length become proper, though they do not exhibit the primitive sense. For this reason, several of the aforesaid instances are not to be considered at present as examples of the catachresis. Sometimes, however, even a new catachresis of the last-mentioned kind, which is the most hazardous, will please the most fastidious critic. Take the following example from Young:

"Her voice is but the shadow of a sound."*

The reason of our approbation in this case is, if I mistake not, that an illusion or comparison is suggested which exhibits more strongly the author's meaning than it could have been exhibited by any other words in the same compass. The sentiment is, that the same relation which the shadow bears to the substance of which it is the shadow, the lady's voice bears to an ordinary sound.

Having now discussed what was proposed here concerning tropes, I shall conclude with observing that, in this discussion, there hath been occasion, as it were, incidentally to discover, that they are so far from being the inventions of art, that, on the contrary, they result from the original and essential principles of the human mind; that, accordingly, they are the same, upon the main, in all nations, barbarous and civilized; that the simplest and most ancient tongues do most abound with them, the natural effect of improvement in science and language, which commonly go together, being to regulate the fancy and to restrain the passions; that the sole

* Universal Passion.

FF

business of art in this subject is to range the several tropes and figures into classes, to distinguish them by names, and to trace the principles in the mind which gave them birth.

The first, indeed, or, rather, the only people upon the earth who have thought of classing under proper appellations the numerous tropes and figures of elocution, common to all languages, were the Greeks. The Latins, and all modern nations, have in this particular only borrowed from them, adopting the very names they used. But as to the tracing of those figures to the springs in human nature from which they flow, extremely little hath as yet been attempted. Nay the names that have been given are but few, and, by consequence, very generical. Each class, the metaphor and the metonymy in particular, is capable of being divided into sev eral tribes, to which no names have yet been assigned.

It was affirmed that the tropes and figures of eloquence are found to be the same, upon the main, in all ages and nations. The words upon the main were added, because, though the most and the principal of them are entirely the same, there are a few which presuppose a certain refinement of thought not natural to a rude and illiterate people. Such, in particular, is that species of the metonymy, the concrete for the abstract, and possibly some others. We shall afterward, perhaps, have occasion to remark, that the modern improvements in ridicule have given rise to some which cannot properly be ranged under any of the classes above mentioned, to which, therefore, no name hath as yet been appropriated, and of which I am not sure whether antiquity can furnish us with an example.

SECTION III.

WORDS CONSIDERED AS SOUNDS.

WHEN I entered on the consideration of vivacity as depending on the choice of words, I observed that the words may be either proper terms or rhetorical tropes; and whether the one or the other, they may be regarded not only as signs, but as sounds, and, consequently, as capable, in certain cases, of bearing, in some degree, a natural resemblance or affinity to the things signified. The first two articles, proper terms and rhetorical tropes, I have discussed already, regarding only the sense and application of the words, whether used literally or figuratively. It remains now to consider them in regard to the sound, and the affinity to the subject of which the sound is susceptible. When, as Pope expresseth it, "the sound is made an echo to the sense," ,"* there is added, in a certain degree, to the association arising from custom, the influence of resemblance between the signs and the things signified, and * Essay on Criticism