XVI.

LECT. fame assistances cannot be obtained for raising passion to its proper height by the force of numbers, and the glow of style. However, addresses to inanimate objects are not excluded from profe; but have their place only in the higher species of oratory. A public Speaker may on some occasions very properly address religion or virtue; or his native coun try, or fome city or province, which has fuffered perhaps great calamities, or been the scene of fome memorable action. But we must remember, that as fuch addresses are among the highest efforts of eloquence, they should never be attempted, unless by persons of more than ordinary genius. For if the orator fails in his design of moving our paffions by them, he is sure of being laughed at. Of all frigid things, the most frigid, are the awkward and unseasonable attempts fometimes made towards such kinds of Perfonification, especially if they be long continued. We fee the writer or speaker toiling, and labouring, to express the language of fome paffion, which he neither feels himself, nor çan make us feel. We remain not only cold, but frozen; and are at full leifure to criticise on the ridiculous figure which the perfonified object makes, when we ought to have been transported with a glow of enthusiasm. Some of the French writers, particularly Boffuet and Flechier, in their fermons and funeral orations, orations, have attempted and executed this LECT.

XVI.

2

Figure, not without warmth and dignity. Their works are exceedingly worthy of being confulted, for instances of this, and of several other ornaments of style. Indeed the vivacity and ardour of the French genius is

more fuited to this bold species of oratory,

than the more correct but less animated genius of the British, who in their prose works very rarely attempt any of the high Figures of eloquence *. So much for Personifications or Prosopopeia, in all its different forms.

APOSTROPHE

* In the "Oraisons Funebres de M. Bossuet," which I confider as one of the master-pieces of modern eloquence, Apostrophes and addresses to perfonified objects, frequently occur, and are supported with much spirit. Thus, for instance, in the funeral oration of Mary of Auftria, Queen of France, the author addresses Algiers, in the profpect of the advantage which the arms of Louis XIV. were to gain over it : " Avant lui la France, presque fans " vaisseaux, tenoit en vain aux deux mers. Maintenant, " on les voit couvertes depuis le Levant jusqu'au couchant " de nos flottes victorieuses; & la hardiesse Françoise port

66

par tout la terreur avec le nom de Louis. Tu cederas, tu tomberas sous ce vainqueur, Alger! riche des depou" illes de la Chretienté. Tu disois en ton cœur avare, je " tiens le mer sous ma loix, et les nations sont ma proie, "La legereté de tes vaisseaux te donnoit de la confiance. " Mais tu te verras attaqué dans tes murailles, comme un "oisseau ravissant qu'on iroit chercher parmi ses rochers, " & dans son nid, où il partage son butin à ses petits. " Tu rends dejà tes esclaves. Louis a brisé les fers, dont tu acablois ses sujets, &c." In another passage of the fame

Ee 4

LECT.
XVI.

APOSTROPHE is a Figure so much of the same kind, that it will not require many words. It is an address to a real person; but one who is either absent or dead, as if he were present, and listening to us. It is fo much allied to an address to inanimate objects personified, that both these Figures are sometimes called Apostrophes. However, the proper Apostrophe is in boldness one degree lower than the address to perfonified objects;

same oration, he thus apostrophizes the Isle of Pheasants, which had been rendered famous by being the scene of those conferences, in which the treaty of the Pyrenees between France and Spain, and the marriage of this Princess with the King of France, were concluded. "Ifle " pacifique où se doivent terminer les differends de deux

grands empires à qui tu sers de limites: isle eternelle"ment memorable par les conferences de deux grands "ministres. Auguste journée où deux fieres nations,

long tems enemis, et alors reconcileés par Marie The" rese s'avançent sur leur confins, leur rois à leur tête, " non plus pour se combattre, mais pour s'embrasser." Fêtes facrées, mariage fortuné, voile nuptial, bene"diction, sacrifice, puis-je meler aujourdhui vos ceremo" nies, et vos pompes, avec ces pompes funebres, & le "comble des grandeurs avec leur ruines!" In the funeral oration of Henrietta, Queen of England (which is perhaps the nobleft of all his compositions), after recounting all the had done to support her unfortunate husband, he concludes with this beautiful Apoftrophe: "O mère! O femme! "O reine admirable & digne d'une meilleure fortune, si " les fortunes de la terre étoient quelque chose! Enfin il " faut ceder à votre fort. Vous avez assez soutenu l'état,

qui est attaqué par une force invincible et divine. Il ne " reste plus deformais, fi non que vous teniez ferme parmi "fes ruines."

for

for it certainly requires a less effort of imagi-LECT. nation to suppose persons present who are dead or absent, than to animate insensible beings, and direct our difcourse to them. Both Figures are subject to the fame rule of being prompted by paffion, in order to render them natural; for both are the language of paffion

XVL

or strong emotions only. Among the poets Apostrophe is frequent; as in Virgil :

:

-Pereunt Hypanisque Dymasque

Confixi a fociis; nec te, tua plurima, Pantheu
Labentem pietas, nec Apollinis infula texit * !

THE poems of Offian are full of the most beautiful instances of this Figure: Weep

on the rocks of roaring winds, O maid of "Inistore! bend thy fair head over the waves, "thou fairer than the ghost of the hills, when "it moves in a funbeam at noon over the " filence of Morven! He is fallen! Thy "youth is low; pale beneath the sword of "Cuchullin!†" Quinctilian affords us a very fine example in prose; when in the beginning of his fixth book, deploring the untimely death of his son, which had happened during the course of the work, he makes a very moving and tender Apoftrophe to him.

LECT.
XVI.

"Nam quo ille animo, qua medicorum admi"ratione, menfium octo valetudinem tulit? " ut me in fupremis confolatus est ? quam " etiam jam deficiens, jamque non nofter, ip"fum illum alienatæ mentis errorem circa " folas literas habuit? Tuosne ergo, O meæ "spes inanes! labentes oculos, tuum fugien

tem spiritum vidi? Tuum corpus frigidum, Rc exangue complexus, animam recipere, auramque communem haurire amplius potui? "Tene, confulari nuper adoptione ad omnium

fpes honorum patris admotum, te, avunculo " prætori generum destinatum; te, omnium " spe Atticæ eloquentiæ candidatum, parens

superstes tantum ad pœnas amifi *!" In this

• "With what spirit, and how much to the admiration " of the physicians did he bear throughout eight months "his lingering distress ? With what tender attention did he

study, even in the last extremity, to comfort me? And, "when no longer himself, how affecting was it to behold "the disordered efforts of his wandering mind, wholly

employed on fubjects of literature? Ah! my fruftrated " and fallen hopes! Have 1 then beheld your clofing

eyes, and heard the last groan issue from your lips? "After having embraced your cold and breathless body, "how was it in my power to draw the vital air, or con"tinue to drag a miferable life? When I had just beheld you raised by consular adoption to the prospect of all your father's honours, destined to be fon-in-law to your uncle the Prætor, pointed out by general expectation as " the fuccefsful candidate for the prize of Attic eloquence, " in this moment of your opening honours, must I lose you fot, ever, and remain an unhappy parent, furviving o. ly to fuffer woe???

paffage,