great majority, and steered into the safe harbour of royal approbation.'

'I am glad to hear there are no weightier objections against that reverend body planted in this city.'

Swift, the writer of the above sentence, professedly rejected all embellishment of language; and whenever, in grave or serious subjects, he is betrayed into metaphor, the figure is generally inconsistent with the tone of thought naturally required in such cases. Here, besides being inappropriate, the figure is also incongruous-bodies are never planted.

2. Metaphors should never be taken from low or mean objects. It is offensive to good taste to draw figures from vulgar or nauseous sources. This practice is the more unpardonable, as there is an abundance of materials for metaphorical language. All nature is open to us where to choose' for this purpose, and offers us an almost infinite variety of objects illustrative of moral or intellectual ideas. Writers, however, have frequently erred in this particular. Tillotson, speaking of the Day of Judgment, describes the world as 'cracking about the sinners' ears. "The pretensions to the supernatural,' says Coleridge, 'pillored by Butler, sent to Bedlam by Swift, and, on their reappearance in public, gibbetted by Warburton, and anatomised by Bishop Lavington, one and all, have this for their essential character, that the spirit is made the universal object of sense or

sensation.'

A poet describing the footmen's flambeaux after an opera, says:—

'Now blazed a thousand flaming suns, and bade
Grim night retire.'

Dryden quotes a poet, who imagines winter

To periwig with snow the bald-pate woods.'

3. Taste and judgment are required to select the most striking images, and show resemblances in points hitherto unobserved. Metaphors should never be forced; they should have the appearance of falling naturally into their places, and not of being constrained to do duty for some other and more appropriate word. Neither should they be drawn from unknown or abstruse sources, as such figures will be regarded, not only as pedantic, but as impertinent; and, instead of adding grace or beauty to the idea they are intended to illustrate, they will only serve to involve it in obscurity. The most effective metaphors, therefore, are those derived from the common appearances or occurrences in art or nature, and the daily affairs of human life.

4. Care should be taken that the terms of a metaphor be not incongruous. The expression 'to eradicate the seeds of vice,' is an instance of this kind of false figure. To 'eradicate' means to pull out by the roots,—an action which could not be performed on a seed. We may say, correctly, to eradicate a vice, or a habit, since we may, figuratively, look upon the one or the other as having taken root in our nature; but since a seed, as such, has no root, the terms'eradicate' and 'seed' are incongruous, and cannot be used with reference to each other, in the same figure. And here may be clearly seen the value of a knowledge of derivation. Those who are acquainted with etymology are not likely to bring together incongruous terms. Aware of the original signification of words, they at

once perceive that certain terms are incompatible with each other, and thus more easily avoid the inelegance and incorrectness arising from ignorance of this branch of the study of language.

The following are examples of incongruous or inconsistent metaphors:

'Time's effacing fingers cannot erase these interests.' Lord Ellesmere, in the History of the two Sieges of Vienna,' speaking of Sobieski, says, 'He flung his powerful frame into the saddle, and his great soul into the cause.'

Robert Boyle, the celebrated chemist, was described as 'the father of chemistry, and the brother of the Earl of Cork.'

One of Lord Castlereagh's speeches in Parliament has this passage: 'And now, sir, I must embark on the feature on which this subject hinges.'

5. Metaphors taken from different objects should never be used in the same sentence. This error, an

excess of the last-mentioned fault, is one of the grossest abuses of the figure. If it be wrong to use incompatible terms in a single figure, it is much more so to mix metaphors together. For example :—

'Though, in their corrupt notions of divine worship, they are apt to multiply their gods, yet their earthly devotion is seldom paid to above one idol at a time, whose oar they pull with less murmuring and more skill than when they share the lading, or even hold the helm.'

Here the metaphor is ridiculously inconsistent. The demagogue is first an idol, and then a boat-two totally distinct ideas. There is no natural connection what

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ever between worshipping and rowing; and 'to pull the oar of an idol' is a palpable absurdity.

'I bridle in my struggling Muse with pain

That longs to launch into a bolder strain.'

Dr. Johnson, in his 'Life of Addison,' criticising these lines, says: 'To bridle a goddess is no very delicate idea. But why must she be bridled ? — because she longs to launch an act which was never hindered by a bridle; and whither would she launch? — into a nobler strain. In the first line she is a horse; in the second, a boat; and the care of the poet is to keep his horse or his boat from singing.'

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Women were formed to temper mankind, not to set an edge upon their minds, and blow up in them those passions which are apt to rise of their own accord.'

There is no analogy between 'setting an edge' and 'blowing up.'

Even when kept distinct from each other, it is not advisable to use different metaphors in the same period. The sudden change of scene distracts the attention, and the several images convey but a faint impression to the mind.

6. A sentence should never have metaphorical and proper expressions so mixed up together, that one part of it be taken literally, and the other figuratively.

'When thus, as I may say, before the use of the loadstone or knowledge of the compass, I was sailing in a vast ocean, without other help than the pole-star of the ancients, and the rules of the French stage among moderns.'

The fault here lies in the figurative use of the word

'pole-star,' joined to the literal meaning of the 'rules of the French stage.'

ON FIGURES CONNECTED WITH THE METAPHOR.

The peculiar boldness of the figure metaphor makes it at least as intimately connected with the style, as with the thoughts of a writer. For as it is not an explicit comparison, and as the name of one thing is put forward for the name of another, different though resembling it in some quality, there is, consequently, an apparent or real impropriety, and some degree of obscurity, in the use of this figure. The same remark applies to certain tropes closely connected with the metaphor, viz., synecdoché, metonymy, antonomasia, and irony. These all imply the substitution of one thing for another, but in different relations.

In synecdoché, the relation is between a part and the whole, or between the material and the thing made; as when we say, He earns his bread (a part of his food); The canvas glows; The marble speaks (the material for the thing made).

In metonymy, the relation is between cause and effect (or vice versa); the container for the thing contained, or the sign for the thing signified; as, Gray hairs should be respected (effect for cause); I am reading Macaulay (cause for effect); The country was distracted (for inhabitants); He assumed the crown (sign of power, for power).

Antonomasia is where the individual is put for the species; as, Every man is not a Solomon (for the species wise); Do you take me for a Cræsus? (rich). In irony, the relation between the thing said and