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president's chair. Metonymies are, it will be seen, a little bolder than Synecdoches.

6. Frequency of Tropes.-Tropes are of frequent occurrence in all writings.

Sometimes the names of animals are used for men, as "Go tell that fox!" How much more expressive than "Go tell that crafty man!"

One inanimate thing is made to stand for another. "We are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses "-that is, they are so numerous as to suggest a cloud which shuts out the light of the sun. "The city was overwhelmed in a deluge of fire."

7. Tropes must be Employed.—Tropes are absolutely indispensable as a part of the material of every author. If words were confined to their first meaning, they would be far too few to express the thoughts of men. If every idea had a word, no mortal memory could command sufficient material to express the thoughts of a cultivated mind. Words, like coins of money, must be made to represent successively different objects, for our convenience.

If we examine almost any written production, we shall find many tropes which can not be removed without leaving what remains a useless heap of ruins. Let us analyze, for illustration, the opening sentences of the Preface to Bancroft's "History of the United States:"

"I have formed the design of writing a History of the United States from the discovery of the American Continent to the present time. As the moment arrives for publishing a portion of the work, I am impressed more strongly than ever with a sense of the grandeur and vastness of the subject; and am ready to charge myself with presumption for venturing on so bold an enterprise."

All the words italicized in the above extract (and indeed several others) are tropes. Form meant originally to shape, as with a knife or other instrument. The shoemaker forms a shoe. Design meant originally a plan or map; discovery was the process of uncovering, as potatoes are uncovered to be taken from the ground; impressed originally meant pressed upon, as the ground is pressed upon by a falling stone; subject is something placed beneath, as a mat to stand upon; presumption is the act of taking too soon, as plucking fruit before it is ripe, or taking an object before our turn, or the time allotted to us; an enterprise is something undertaken, has no life, and can not be bold.

If we find so many tropes in a few lines of unimpassioned prose, what may we expect in poetry?

"So live, that when thy summons comes to join

The innumerable caravan that moves

To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death;

Thou go not like the quarry slave at night,

Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
Around him, and lies down to pleasant dreams."

Let each of the italic words in the above be carefully examined, and the literal and figurative meanings be compared.

8. Terms to express Mental Qualities and Actions all Tropes.-Indeed it becomes evident, by careful examination, that nearly if not quite all the language employed to describe the mind and mental action is

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figurative. The stock of words first used by man was small, and described only material objects and changes and phenomena. As men gradually advanced to consider and explain mental objects and actions, instead of inventing new words to express them, they used old terms in a new sense. They were enabled to do this by the fact that there is a mysterious analogy between matter and mind, and between material and mental operations; an analogy admirable, and that can not be accidental, which shows that God has made material and spiritual things to exist together and illustrate each other. Neither can be properly understood without studying the other. Language links them together. Physics must always precede metaphysics. Rhetoric embraces the presentation of both.

9. The original Meaning of many Tropes lost.—Nearly if not quite all of the terms now used to express mental properties and actions were originally confined to material objects and operations. But inasmuch as the English language is a modern language, and is made up largely of words transferred from other languages, the most of the words used to describe mental facts and actions have never been used in their literal meaning in the English language. The first meaning of the words learned by those who speak only the English language is that which they now bear, though they were once employed in other languages in a lower sense.

We give a few specimens of this kind of words. Reflect, literally, to throw back, as a mirror reflects

the rays of light; figuratively, to look at a subject on both sides, or to consider or meditate. Educate, literally, to lead out; figuratively, to instruct and train. Digest, literally, to bear away or dissolve, as water dissolves sugar; figuratively, to reflect upon and study, as to digest a book. Other words of this character are, associate, compare, intellect, sincere, consult, remark, conclude, and hundreds more. Many tropes have become so common that the secondary sense has actually superseded, and in some cases wholly supplanted, the primary signification. Ralph Waldo Emerson has well said, “As the limestone of the continent consists of infinite masses of the shells of animalcules, so language is made up of images, or tropes, which now, in their secondary use, have long since ceased to remind us of their poetic origin."

10. New Tropes.-As the realm of nature is more widely and accurately explored, and as inventions are multiplied, new tropes are introduced. The material for the expression of mental action is increased. Such words as outcropping, strata, daguerreotype, in their tropical or figurative sense, are of course more recent than they are in their scientific sense.

11. Advantages of Tropes.-The advantages of tropes are great.

(1.) They enable us to express many thoughts by a few words. Our best words have several significations—a literal sense and two or more figurative senses. A new tropical sense of an old word is equivalent to the addition of a word to our language, while if the tropical sense is naturally suggested by the primitive

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sense, the memory is not burdened, and the imagination is pleased. We can not afford a new word for every thought.

(2.) Tropes give new power and beauty to language.

A sentiment tropically expressed is much more forcible, and often much more beautiful, than literally expressed.

"The moon climbs up the sky."

"Within this wall of flesh

There is a soul."

"Which angry tides cast up on desert shore."

"This is a drowsy night."

"Let him keep the keen, deep, and precious hatred, set on fire of hell, alive if he can."

12. Classification of Tropes.—Tropes have been carefully classified by grammarians, though no great practical benefit in speaking arises from a memory of the classification.

SYNECDOCHES may be divided into four classes: (1.) Using the Species for the Genus.-" Give us our daily bread." Bread, the lower or narrower class, is used for the higher and broader class, food. "He beareth not the sword in vain." Here sword is used for all the means a magistrate has to execute justice.

It produces a sharper impression to use limited, definite words, rather than broader, and consequently flatter expressions. Orators spontaneously employ

this kind of trope frequently.