This figure is frequently employed for comic effect; as in Burns's "Tam o' Shanter":— "Ah, Tam! Ah, Tam! thou'll get thy fairin'!” It is a liberty taken with exalted objects and persons to address them with familiarity, and the result is degrading and thence ludicrous. The writings of Carlyle abound with this figure thus employed. 53. The figure called Vision is allied to Apostrophe, and consists in bringing the absent before the mind with the force of present reality. Something approaching this occurs in Chatham: "From the tapestry that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestor of this noble lord frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country." Byron's Gladiator is supposed to be seen in the body, on the mere suggestion of the statue. A striking apostrophe, raised to Vision, occurs in the peroration of Robert Hall's Sermon on the Threatened Invasion of 1803. INNUENDO, OR INSINUATION. 54. When a thing, instead of being plainly stated, is suggested or implied merely, the effect is sometimes much greater. This is Innuendo. When it was said of a member of Parliament that "he did his party all the harm in his power, he spoke for it and voted against it "—his unskilful oratory is denounced with a peculiar force. The omission of the direct statement makes the fact seem so notorious, that it can be assumed and proceeded on without that formality. A compliment is rendered more forcible by being merely insinuated. The recipient of direct praise dreads the jealousy of others, and is laid under the necessity of professing gratitude and humility; all which is saved by the indirect compliment. When the Innuendo is employed in vituperation, it has an advantage belonging in a still greater measure to the next figure; it baffles reply. The thing is said, and yet said so that the person reflected upon cannot lay hold of it in the way of refutation or retort. A good example is furnished in Pope's lines on the Lord Mayor's pageant:— "Now night descending, the gay scene is o'er; But lives in Settle's numbers one day more." Fuller's saying on Camden, the antiquarian, is a witty innuendo: "He had a number of coins of the Roman Emperors, and a good many more of the later English Kings." In the progress of refinement, innuendo takes the place of open vituperation. The device of suggesting, instead of openly expressing, is made to ramify widely in literature and the fine arts. The full illustration of it does not belong to this place. The moral tale. evades our usual repugnance to a moral lecture, by conveying its lesson under the guise of an amusing story. But the painter and the poet have other intentions besides this. They introduce particulars that imply a great deal more than they express, and thus give a starting-point to the thoughts. This is always a source of pleasure to the mind, which likes to have a certain scope for desire and imagination. Suggestion may be employed with advantage when a full or direct statement would involve what is harsh or offensive, as in depicting violent anguish or horror, and even in such extreme manifestations of pleasure as the observer cannot sympathize with. IEONY. 55. Irony expresses the contrary of what is meant, there being something in the tone or manner to show the real drift of the speaker; as in Job's address to his friends, "No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom will die with yon." The ironical address gives an opponent no handle, and is thus an embarrassing instrument of vituperation. Carlyle, speaking of the much abused Cromwellian Puritans, says, "yet they were not altogether imbeciles, these men." The cloak of Irony was put on by Swift in his masterpieces of allegory—Gulliver, the Tale of a Tub, and the Battle of the Books. There is a delicate stroke of irony in Sir G. C. Lewis's remark on the pretended antiquity of the Babylonian Astronomy. "The story of the astronomical observations, extending over 31,000 years, sent from Babylon to Aristotle, would be a conclusive proof of the antiquity of the Chuldæan Astronomy, if it were true." The irony consists in seeming to accept the enormous allegation, with merely the slight reservation, if it were true. Sarcasm is vituperation softened in the outward expression by the arts and figures of disguise—epigram, innuendo, irony —and embellished with the figures of illustration. The Letters of Junius come under this description. Pope's Atticus is a mixture of direct vituperation, epigram, innuendo, and irony. There is irony amounting to sarcasm in Locke's remark upon the Aristotelian Logic: "God did not make man, and leave it to Aristotle to make him rational." 56. Of the figures of the old rhetoricians only a small number have been selected in the foregoing exposition. Many are mere varieties of those now given; some will appear in other connections; while a considerable number are so minute or trivial that they are scarce worth attending to. Ellipsis, or the omission of a word or words essential to the construction but not to the sense, is a figure of both grammar and rhetoric. It conduces to brevity, and is sometimes a sign of strong feeling. It is also a suggestive figure; what is unexpressed being left to the imagination to fill up. The single word "Impossible" is more expressive than a complete sentence affirming impossibility. Asyndeton, or the omission of connectives, is a figure conducing to energy. "The wind passeth over it—it is gone." "Thou sentest forth thy wrath—it consumed them as stubble." See also the song of Moses, and Psalm civ. 28-30. Great stress was laid on this figure by the Greek rhetoricians. The Hyperbaton (much used, it is said, by Demosthenes) is purposed inversion and perplexity, before announcing something of great emphasis and import, thus giving to a meditated expression the effect of an impromptu. EXERCISE. Point out and name the figures in the following passages :— A frame of adamant, a soul of fire, No dangers fright him, and no labors tire. Art thou the first man that was born? or wast thou made before the hills? Hast thou heard the secret of God? and dost thou restrain wisdom to thyself? He lived to die, and died to live. Harmonious discord everywhere. But there are even some, O Romans, who say that Catiline has been cast into exile by me. That timid and very modest man, no doubt, was unable to endure the voice of the consul; as soon as he was ordered to go into exile, he obeyed, he went. Ossian's Address to the Moon:—Daughter of heaven, fair art thou! The silence of thy face is pleasant. Thou comest forth in loveliness. The stars attend thy blue course in the east. The clouds rejoice in thy presence, O Moon! They brighten their dark-brown sides. Who is like thee in heaven, light of the silent night? The stars are ashamed in thy presence. They turn away their sparkling eyes. Whither dost thou retire from thy course, when the darkness of thy countenance grows? Hast thou thy hall, like Ossian? Dwellest thou in the shadow of grief? Have thy sisters fallen from heaven? Are they who rejoiced with thee at night no more? Yes, they have fallen, fair light! and thou dost often retire to mourn. But thou thyself shalt fail one night, and leave thy blue path in heaven. The stars will then lift their heads; they who were ashamed in thy presence will rejoice. Thou art now clothed with thy brightness. Look from thy gates in the sky. Burst the cloud, O wind! that the daughters of night may look forth; that the shaggy mountains may brighten, and the ocean roll its white waves in light. The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, If I had as many tongues as there are stars in heaven, as many words as there are grains of sand on the shore, my tongues would be tired, and my words exhausted, before I could do justice to your immense merit. War and Love are strange compeers. War sheds blood, and Love sheds tears; War breaks heads, and Love breaks hearts. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity. Hasten slowly. Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness! How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up: so man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! A Scotch mist becomes a shower; and a shower, a flood; and a flood, a storm; and a storm, a tempest; and a tempest, thunder and lightning; and thunder and lightning, heaven-quake and earthquake. For contemplation he and valor formed; |
