CHAP. XII.

OF PERSONIFICATION.

more

The boldest effort of the imagination seems to be that which bestows sensibility and voluntary motion upon' things inanimate.* At first view, one would be disposed to conclude that this figure borders on the extravagant or ridiculous ; for what can seem remote from the tract of reasonable thought, than to speak of stones, trees, fields, and rivers, as if they were living creatures, and to attribute to them thought and sensation, action and affection ? This would appear to be nothing more than childish conceit which no person of taste could relish. The case however is

very different: no such ridiculous effect is produced by personification, when judiciously managed ; on the contrary, it is found to be natural and agreeable. Nor

* Of prosopopæia or personification, an ancient rhetorician bas given the following account, which partly applies to apostrophe : “ Hoc fit cum personas in rebus constituimus, quae sine personis sunt, aut eorum hominum, qui fuerunt, tanquam vivorum et praesentium actionem sermonemve deformamus." (Rutilius Lupus de Figuris Sententiarum et Elocutionis, p. 89. edit. Ruhnkenii. Lugd. Bat. 1768, 8vo.) The best part of this volume is the very learned editor's Historia critica Oratorum Graecorum ; which may likewise be found in the collection of his Opuscula, tom. i. p. 310. edit. Lugd. Bat. 1823, 2 tom. 8vo.

;

is any very uncommon degree of passion required to make us relish it: into every species of poetry it gains an easy admission ; it is by no means excluded from prose,

and even in .common conversation it not unfrequently finds a place. Thus we do not hesitate to speak of a furious dart, a deceitful disease, the thirsty ground, the angry ocean. The use of such expressions shews the facility with which the mind can accommodate the properties of living creatures to inanimate objects, or to its own abstract ideas.

That our actions are too much influenced by passion, is an acknowledged truth ; but it is not less certain that passion also possesses considerable influence over our perceptions, opinions, and belief. When by any animating passion, whether pleasant or painful, an impulse is given to the imagination, we are in that condition disposed to use every mode of figurative expression ; and those figures are generally founded upon a momentary belief in some circumstance which calm and unclouded reason would represent in quite a different point of view. “ A man agitated,” says Dr. Beattie, “ with any interesting passion, especially of long continuance, is apt to fancy that all nature sympathises with him. If he has lost a beloved friend, he thinks the sun less bright than at other times; and in the sighing of the winds and groves, in the lowings of the herd, and in the murmurs of the stream, to hear the voice of lamentation. But when joy or hope predominates, the whole world assumes a gay appearance. In the contemplation of every part of nature, of every condition of mankind, of every form of human society, the benevolent and pious man, the

a

morose and the cheerful, the miser and the misanthrope, finds occasion to indulge his favourite passion, and sees, or thinks he sees, his own temper reflected back in the actions, sympathies, and tendencies of other things and persons. Our affections are indeed the medium through which we may be said to survey ourselves, and everything else ; and whatever be our inward frame, we are apt to perceive a wonderful congeniality in the world without us. And hence the fancy, when roused by real emotions, or by the pathos of composition, is easily reconciled to those figures of speech that ascribe sympathy, perception, and other attributes of animal life, to things inanimate, or even to notions merely intellectual."*

In the following example of personification, Almeria calls upon the earth to protect her from the unkindness of her father.

*

O Earth, behold, I kneel upon thy bosom,
And bend my flowing eyes to stream upon
Thy face, imploring thee that thou wilt yield ;
Open thy bowels of compassion, take
Into thy womb the last and most forlorn
Of all thy race. Hear me, thou common parent ;
I have no parent else. Be thou a mother,
And step between me and the curse of him,
Who was—who was, but is no more a father ;
But brands my innocence with horrid crimes,
And, for the tender names of child and daughter,

Now calls me murderer and parricide. Cungreve. Plaintive passions are extremely solicitous for vent ; and a soliloquy frequently answers this purpose.

But

a

ܪ

when such a passion becomes excessive, it cannot be gratified except by sympathy from others; and if denied that consolation, it will convert even things inanimate into sympathizing beings.

Ye woods and wilds, whose melancholy gloom
Accords with my soul's sadness, and draws forth
The tear of sorrow from my bursting heart,
Farewell a while.

Home.
Ab happy hills ! ah pleasing shade!

Ah fields beloy'd in vain,
Where once my careless childhood stray'd,

A stranger yet to pain !
I feel the gales that from ye blow,
A momentary bliss bestow;

As waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to sooth,
And, redolent of joy and youth,

To breathe a second spring. That such personification is derived from nature, will not admit of the least doubt, when we consider that it is to be found in the poetical productions of the darkest ages, and most remote countries.

Another source of this figure is terror; which is communicated in thought to every surrounding object, even to those which are inanimate.

Go, view the settling sea. The stormy wind is laid ; but the billows still tumble on the deep, and seem to fear the blast. -Ossian.

We naturally communicate our joy in the same

Gray.

Well pleas'd, they slack their course, and many a league Cheer'd with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles.-Milton. In some of the above examples, the personification, if I mistake not, is so complete as to afford an actual, though momentary, conviction, that the objects introduced are possessed of life and intelligence. But it is evident, from numberless instances, that the personification is not always so perfect. It is often employed in descriptive poetry, without being intended to produce the same conviction.

O Winds of winter! list ye there

To many a deep and dying groan?

Or start ye, demons of the midnight air,

At shrieks and thunders louder than your own?

Alas! ev'n your unhallow'd breath

May spare the victim fallen low ;
But man will ask no truce to death,

No bounds to human woe.

Campbell.

Come gentle Spring! ethereal mildness, come,
And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud,
While music wakes around, veil'd in a shower
Of shadowing roses on our plains descend.-Thomson.
Now Summer with her wanton court is gone
To revel on the south side of the world,
And flaunt and frolic out the livelong day;

While Winter rising pale from northern seas,

Shakes from his hoary locks the drizzling rheum.—Armstrong.

Lo! how the Years to come, a numerous and well-fitted quire,
All hand in hand do decently advance,

And to my song with smooth and equal measure dance.

But look, the Morn, in russet mantle clad,

Cowley.

Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill.-Shakspeare.

Awake, ye West Winds, through the lonely dale,

And, Fancy, to thy fairy bower betake!