contrafted and replete with imagery, and is amongst the strongest of those inftances, where the orator addreffes himfelf to the fenfes and paffions of his hearers: But let the difciple tread this path with caution; let him wait the call, and be fure he has an occafion worthy of his ef forts before he makes them.

Allegory, perfonification and metaphor will prefs upon his imagination at certain times, but let him foberly confult his judgment in those moments, and weigh their fitness before he admits them into his ftile. As for allegory, it is at best but a kind of fairy form; it is hard to naturalize it and it will rarely fill a graceful part in any manly compofition. With refpect to personification, as I am fpeaking of profe only, it is but an exotic ornament, and may be confidered ra-' ther as the loan of the muses than as the property of profe; let our ftudent therefore beware how he borrows the feathers of the jay, left his unnatural finery fhould only ferve to make him pointed at and defpifed. Metaphor, on the other hand, is common property, and he may take his share of it, provided he has difcretion not to abufe his privilege, and neither furfeits the appetite with repletion, nor confounds the palate with too much variety: Let his metaphor be appofite,

G 2

appofite, fingle and unconfused, and it will serve him as a kind of rhetorical lever to lift and elevate his ftile above the pitch of ordinary difcourfe; let him alfo fo apply this machine, as to make it touch in as many points as poffible; otherwise it can never so poise the weight above it, as to keep it firm and fteady on its proper

center.

To give an example of the right use and application of this figure I again apply to a learned author already quoted-" Our first parents hav"ing fallen from their native state of innocence, "the tincture of evil, like an hereditary disease "infected all their pofterity; and the leaven of "fin having once corrupted the whole mafs of "mankind, all the fpecies ever after would be "foured and tainted with it; the vitious fer"ment perpetually diffusing and propagating "itself through all generations."-(Bentley, Comm. Sermon).

There will be found also in certain writers a profufion of words, ramifying indeed from the fame root, yet rifing into climax by their power and importance, which feems to burst forth from the overflow and impetuofity of the imagination; resembling at firft fight what Quintilian characterises as the Abundantia Juvenilis, but

which, when tempered by the hand of a master, will upon closer examination be found to bear the stamp of judgment under the appearance of precipitancy. I need only turn to the famous Commencement Sermon before quoted, and my meaning will be fully illuftrated-" Let them "tell us then what is the chain, the cement, the «magnetism, what they will call it, the invifi"ble tie of that union, whereby matter and an "incorporeal mind, things that have no fimili❝tude or alliance to each other, can fo fympa❝thize by a mutual league of motion and sensa❝tion. No; they will not pretend to that, "for they can frame no conceptions of it: "They are fure there is such an union from the

operations and effects, but the cause and the ❝manner of it are too fubtle and fecret to be ❝ difcovered by the eye of reafon; 'tis mystery, 'tis divine magic, 'tis natural miracle.”

I

N° CXXXIV.

̓Αληθόμυθον χρὴ εἶναι, ο πολύλογον,

(DEMOCRATES.)

Remember only that your words be true, "No matter then how many or how few."

To THE OBSERVER.

HAVE a habit of dealing in the marvel

lous, which I cannot overcome: Some people, who feem to take a pleasure in magnifying the little flaws to be found in all characters, call this by a name, which no gentleman ought to ufe, or likes to hear: The fact is, I have fo much tender confideration for Truth in her state of nakedness, that, till I have put her into decent cloathing, I cannot think of bringing her into company; and if her appearance is fometimes fo much altered by drefs, that her beft friends cannot find her out, am I to blame for that?

There is a matter-of-fact man of my acquaintance, who haunts me in all places and is the very torment of my life; he fticks to me as the threfher docs to the whale, and is the perfect

night-mare of my imagination; this fellow never lets one of my ftories pafs without docking it like an attorney's bill before a master in chancery: He cut forty miles out of a journey of one hundred, which but for him I had performed in one day upon the fame horse; in which I confess I had ftretched a point for the pleasure of out-riding a fat fellow in company, who by the malicious veracity of my aforefaid Damper threw me at least ten miles distance be

hind him.

This provoking animal cut up my fuccefs in fo many intrigues and adventures, that I was determined to lay my plan out of his reach in a spot, which I had provided for an evil day, and accordingly I led him a dance into Corfica, where I was fure he could not follow me: Here I had certainly been, and knew my ground well enough to prance over it at a very handsome rate: I noticed a kind of fly leer in some of the company, which was pointed towards a gentleman prefent, who was a ftranger to me, and fo far from joining in the titter was very politely attentive to what I was relating. I was at this moment warm in the cause of freedom, and had performed fuch prodigies of valour in its defence, that before my story was well ended I had