a state, learning; and then both of them together for a time; in the declining age of a state, mechanical arts and merchandise.”—BACON.

(ii) Learn from the birds what foods the thickets yield;

Learn from the beasts the physic of the field;

Thy arts of building from the bee receive;

Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave."-POPE.

6. The dash is used (i) to introduce an amplification or explanation; and (ii) two dashes are often employed in place of the old parenthesis.

(i) "During the march a storm of rain, thunder, and lightning came on—a storm such as is only seen in tropical countries.'

(ii) "Ribbons, buckles, buttons, pieces of gold-lace-any trifles he had worn-were stored as priceless treasures."

7. The comma is used to indicate a strong pause, either of sense or of sound.

(i) It is true that the comma is the weakest of all our stops; but there are many pauses which we ought to make in reading a sentence aloud that are not nearly strong enough to warrant a comma.

(ii) It is better to understop rather than to overstop. For example, the last part of the last sentence in the paragraph above might have been printed thus: "there are many pauses, which we ought to make, in reading a sentence aloud, that are not nearly strong enough to warrant a comma." This is the old-fashioned style; but such sprinkling of commas is not at all necessary.

(iii) Two things are all that are required to teach us the use of a comma: (a) observation of the custom of good writers; and (b) careful consideration of the sense and build of our own sentences.

(iv) The following are a few special uses of the comma :

(a) It may be used in place of and :

"We first endure, then pity, then embrace."

(b) After an address: "John, come here."

(c) After certain introductory adverbs, as however, at length, at last, etc. "He came, however, in time to catch the train.”

8. The point of interrogation (?) is placed at the end of a question.

9. The point of admiration (!) is employed to mark a statement which calls for surprise or wonder; but it is now seldom used.

FIGURES OF SPEECH.

1. The mind naturally tends, especially when in a state of excitement, to the use of what is called figurative language. It is as if we called upon all the things we see or have seen to come forward and help us to express our overmastering emotions. In fact, the external shows of nature are required to express the internal movements of the mind; the external world provides a language for the internal or mental world. Hence we find all language full of figures of speech. Though we do not notice them at the time, we can hardly open our mouths without using them. As Butler says in his famous poem

"For Hudibras,-he could not ope

We speak of a town being stormed; of a clear head; a hard heart; winged words; glowing eloquence; virgin snow; a torrent of words; the thirsty ground; the angry sea. We speak of God's Word being a light to our feet and a lamp to our path.

2. This kind of language has been examined, classified, and arranged under heads; and the chief figures of speech are called Simile, Metaphor, Personification, Allegory, Synecdoché, Metonymy, and Hyperbolé.

3. A Simile is a comparison that is limited to one point. "Jones fought like a lion." Here the single point of likeness between Jones and the lion is the bravery of the fighting of each.

(Simile comes from the Latin similis, like.)

(i) "His spear was like the mast of a ship." His salté terés striken down like rain," says Chaucer. Apollo came like the night," says Homer. "His words fell soft, like snow upon the ground," are the words used by Homer in speaking of Ulysses. "It stirs the heart like the sound of a trumpet said Sir Philip Sidney in speaking of the ballad of "Chevy Chase." Tennyson admirably compares a miller covered with flour to "a working-bee in blossom-dust."

1 A trope-from Greek tropos, a turning. A word that has been turned from its ordinary and primary use. From the same root come tropics and tropical.

4. A Metaphor is a simile with the words like or as left out. Instead of saying "Roderick Dhu fought like a lion," we use a metaphor, and say "He was a lion in the fight."

(Metaphor is a Greek word meaning transference.)

(i) All language, as we have seen, is full of metaphors. Hence language has been called "fossil poetry." Thus, even in very ordinary prose, we may say, the wish is father to the thought;" "the news was a dagger to his heart;" or we speak of the fire of passion; of a ray of hope; a flash of wit; a thought striking us; and so on.

(ii) By frequent use, and by forgetfulness, many metaphors have lost their figurative character. Thus we use the words provide (to see beforehand), edify (to build up), express (to squeeze out), detect (to unroof), ruminate (to chew the cud), without the smallest feeling of their metaphorical character.

(iii) We must never mix our metaphors. It will not do to say: "In a moment the thunderbolt was on them, deluging the country with invaders." "I will now embark upon the feature on which this question mainly hinges."

(iv) Metaphors and similes may be mixed. Thus Longfellow :

Metaphor,..{The day is done; and the darkness

Simile,.....

Falls from the wings of night,

As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

(v) A metaphor is a figure in which the objects compared are treated by the mind as identical for the time being. A simile simply treats them as resembling one another; and the mind keeps the two carefully apart.

5. Personification is that figure by which, under the influence of strong feeling, we attribute life and mind to impersonal and inanimate things.

(i) Thus we speak, in poetic and impassioned language, of pale Fear; gaunt Famine; green-eyed Jealousy; and white-handed Hope. The morning is said to laugh; the winds to whisper; the oaks to sigh; and the brooks to prattle.

(ii) Milton, in the 'Paradise Lost,' ix. 780, thus describes the fall of Eve:

"So saying, her rash hand in evil hour

Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she ate !
Earth felt the wound; and Nature, from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe
That all was lost."

Shelley's 'Cloud' is one long personification.

(iii) When the personified object is directly addressed, the figure is called Apostrophé. Thus we have, “O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory?"

6. An Allegory is a continuous personification in the form of a story.

(i) The genus is personification; the differentia, a story; and the species is an allegory.

(ii) Milton's "Death and Sin," in the tenth book of the 'Paradise Lost,' is a short allegory. Spenser's 'Faerie Queene' and Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress' are long allegories.

(iii) A short allegory is called a Fable.

7. Synecdoché is that figure of speech by which a part is put for the whole. Thus we say, in a more striking fashion, bread instead of food; a cut-throat for a murderer; fifty sail for fifty ships; all hands at work.

(i) Lear, in the height of his mad rage against his daughters, shouts, I abjure all roofs !"

(ii) The name of the material—as a part of the whole production—is sometimes used for the thing made: as cold steel for the sword; the marble speaks; the canvas glows.

8. Metonymy is that figure of speech by which a thing is named, not with its own name, but by some accompaniment. Thus we say, the crown for the king; the sword for physical force.

(The word metonymy is a Greek word meaning change of names.)

We write the ermine for the bench of judges; the mitre for the bishops; red tape for official routine; a long purse for a great deal of money; the bottle for habits of drunkenness.

9. Hyperbolé or Exaggeration is a figure by which much more is said than is literally true. This is of course the re

sult of very strong emotion.

(i) Milton says:—

"So frowned the mighty combatants, that hell

Grew darker at their frown."

(ii) Scott, in 'Kenilworth,' has this passage: "The mind of England's

Elizabeth was like one of those ancient Druidical monuments called

rocking-stones. The finger of Cupid, boy as he is painted, could put her feelings in motion; but the power of Hercules could not have destroyed their equilibrium."

10. The following is a summary of the chief of the above statements:

1. A Figure of Speech employs a vivid or striking image of something without to express a feeling or idea within.

2. A Simile uses an external image with the word like. 3. A Metaphor uses the same image without the word like. 4. A Personification is a metaphor taken from a person or living being.

5. An allegory is a continuous personification.

PARAPHRASING.

1. Paraphrasing is a kind of exercise that is not without its uses. These uses are chiefly two: (i) to bind the learner's attention closely to every word and phrase, meaning and shade of meaning; and (ii) to enable the teacher to see whether the learner has accurately and fully understood the passage. But no one can hope to improve on the style of a poem by turning the words and phrases of the poet into other language; the change made is always—or almost always—a change for the

worse.

2. Passages from good prose writers are sometimes given out to paraphrase, but most often passages from poetical writers. The reason of this is that poetry is in general much more highly compressed than prose, and hence the meaning is sometimes obscure, for want of a little more expansion. The following lines by Sir Henry Wotton, the Provost of Eton College, are a good example of much thought compressed within a little space: