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The reason of our approbation in this case, is, if I mistake not, that an allusion 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 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 metonomy in particular, is capable of being divided into several 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 illietrate people. Such in particular is that species of the metonymy, the concrete for the abstract, and possibly some others. We shall afterwards 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 fur nish 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 two first 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 this doubtless tends to strengthen the impression made by the discourse. This subject, I acknowledge, hath been very much canvassed by critics; I shall therefore be the briefer in my remarks, confining myself chiefly to the two following points. First, I shall enquire what kinds of things language is capable of imitating by its sound, and in what degree it is capable; secondly, what rank ought to be assigned

Essay on Criticism.

to this species of excellence, and in what cases it ought to be attempted.

PART I.—What are articulate sounds capable of imitating, and in what degree.

First, I shall enquire what kinds of things language is capable of imitating by its sound, and in what degree it is capable.

And here it is natural to think, that the imitative power of language must be greatest, when the subject itself is things audible. One sound may surely have a greater resemblance to another sound, than it can have to any thing of a different nature. In the description therefore of the terrible thunder, whirlwind and tempest, or of the cooling zephyr and the gentle gale, or of any other thing that is sonorous, the imitation that may be made by the sound of the description will certainly be more perfect, than can well be expected in what concerns things purely intelligible, or visible, or tangible. Yet even here the resemblance, if we consider it abstractly, is very faint.

The human voice is doubtless capable of imitating, to a considerable degree of exactness, almost any sound whatever. But our present inquiry is solely about what may be imitated by articulate sounds, for articulation greatly confines the natural powers of the voice; neither do we inquire what an extraordinary pronunciation may effectuate, but what power in this respect the letters of the alphabet have, when combined into syllables, and these into words, and these again into sentences, uttered audibly indeed and distinctly, but without any uncom mon effort. Nay, the orator in this species of imitation, is still more limited. He is not at liberty to select whatever articulate sounds he can find to be fittest for imitating those concerning which he is discoursing. That he may be understood, he is under a necessity of confining himself to such sounds as are rendered by use the signs of the things he would suggest by them. If there

be a variety of these signs, which commonly cannot be great, he hath some scope for selection, but not otherwise. Yet so remote is the resemblance here at best, that in no language, ancient or modern, are the meanings of any words, except perhaps those expressing the cries of some animals, discoverable, on the bare hearing, to one who doth not understand the language.

Indeed, when the subject is articulate sound, the speaker or the writer may do more than produce a resem blance, he may even render the expression an example of that which he affirms. Of this kind precisely are the three last lines of the following quotation from Pope: These equal syllables alone require, Tho' oft the ear the open vowels tire, While expletives their feeble aid do join, And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.

But this manner, which, it must be owned, hath a very good effect in enlivening the expression, is not imitation, though it hath sometimes been mistaken for it, or rather confounded with it.

As to sounds inarticulate, a proper imitation of them hath been attempted in the same piece, in the subsequent lines, and with tolerable success, at least in the concluding couplet:

Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,

And the smooth stream in smoother number flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,

The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar.+

An attempt of the same kind of conformity of the sound to the sense, is perhaps but too discernible in the follow ing quotation from the same author:

O'er all the dreary coasts,

Dreadful gleams,
Dismal screams,
Fires that glow,
Shrieks of woe,

Sullen moans,

Hollow groans,

And cries of injured ghosts+

Essay on Criticism.

+ Ibid.

‡ Ode on St Cecilia's Day,

Milton's description of the opening of hell-gates ought not here to be overlooked.

-On a sudden open fly

With impetuous recoil and jarring sound,
Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder-

The same author has, in another performance, given an excellent specimen in this way,

Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw.t

He succeeds the better here, that what he says is evidently accompanied with a design of exciting contempt. This induceth us to make allowance for his leaving the beaten road in search of epithets. In this passage of the Odyssey,

-His bloody hand

Snatch'd two unhappy of my martial band;
And dash'd like dogs against the stony floor ‡;

the sound, but not the abruptness of the crash, is, I imagine, better imitated than in the original, which, on account of both, especially the last, was much admired by the critic of Halicarnassus. An excellent attempt in this way we have in a poem of Dyer:

-The Pilgrim oft

At dead of night mid his oraison hears
Aghast the voice of time, disparting towers,

Tumbling all precipitate down-dash'd,

Rattling around, loud thundering to the moon §.

But the best example to be found in our language, is, in my opinion, the following lines of Mr Pope,

Paradise Last, B. II.

+Lycidas. An imitation of a line of Virgil, Ecl. s.

Stridenti miserum stipula disperdere carmen

Pope's Od. In Homer thus,

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Συν δε δυω μαρψας, ωςε σκυλακας πολύ γαιη
Koal.

§ Ruins of Rome, Dodsley's Collection, vol. 1.

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