2. Maxims, apophthegms, current sayings, mottoes, etc. Here, as with proverbs, there is need of brevity, emphasis, and something that shall strike the mind and cleave to the memory. This may be illustrated by the maxims of Rochefoucauld; the apophthegms of Bacon; sayings, such as, "Victory or death." A peerage or Westminster Abbey." "The Guard dies, it never surrenders." Mottoes, such as, "E pluribus unum." "The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church."

3. Dialogues.

This is constantly seen in the Greek tragedies, where the dialogue is largely antithetical. The story of Leonidas at Thermopylae contains an antithetical dialogue full of immortal force, which may be reduced to the following form:

"Deliver up your arms !-Come and take them."

"Our arrows darken the sun.-Then we will fight in the shade." "You will all be slain.—Then to-night we will sup with Pluto.”

4. Antithesis is invaluable to precision, and for the sake of making nice distinctions:

"He can bribe, but he cannot seduce. He can buy, but he cannot gain. He can lie, but he cannot deceive. It is the very struggle of the noble Othello. His heart relents, but his hand is firm. He does naught in hate, but all in honor. He kisses the beautiful deceiver before he destroys her." -MACAULAY.

"I do not live that I may eat; but I eat that I may live."

5. For this reason it is admirably adapted for the portrayal of character:

"The Puritan was made up of two different characters: the one all selfabasement, penitence, gratitude, passion; the other proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in the dust before his Maker, but he set his foot on the neck of his king."-MACAULAY.

"Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,

Was everything by starts, and nothing long;
But in the course of one revolving moon
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.
Railing and praising were his usual themes;
And, both to show his judgment in extremes,
So over-violent or over-civil,

That every man with him was God or devil.
In squandering wealth was his peculiar art,
Nothing went unrewarded but desert.

Beggared by fools, whom still he found too late,
He had his jest, and they had his estate."-Dryden.

"Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne,
View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes,
And hate the arts that caused himself to rise;
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.

A timorous foe, by flatterers besieged,
And so obliging that he ne'er obliged.”—POPE.

6. Lofty and serious themes:

"Go, tell the court it glows

And shines like rotten wood.
Go, tell the church it shows
What's good, and doth no good.
If church and court reply,
Then give them both the lie.

"Tell zeal it lacks devotion,
Tell love it is but lust,
Tell time it is but motion,
Tell flesh it is but dust.
And wish them not reply,

For thou must give the lie."-SIR WALTER Raleigh.

"All are but parts of one stupendous whole,

Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;

That, changed through all, and yet through all the same,
Great in the earth as in the ethereal frame;

Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees;
Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent ;

Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns:

To Him no high, no low, no great, no small ;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.”—POPE.

7. The sublime.

Hebrew poetry is full of passages which iilustrate this. The following is from Habakkuk :

"God came from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran.

His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise.

"Our very hopes belied our fears,

Our fears our hopes belied;

We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.

"For when the morn came dim and sad,

And chill with early showers,

Her quiet eyelids closed-she had

Another morn than ours."-THOMAS HOOD.

9. Wit and humor.

The application of antithesis to the purposes of wit is so general that some have considered this figure one of its constituent elements. "To extirpate antithesis from literature altogether," says a writer, "would be to destroy at one stroke about eight tenths of all the wit, ancient and modern, now existing in the world.”

10. The epigram.

A large proportion of epigrams are made up by means of antithesis. This will be fully discussed under its own head.

§ 77. ANTITHESIS COMPARED WITH PLAIN STATEMENT. The force of antithesis can be well tested by taking any passage of literature and writing it in the antithetical form and in the common style for the sake of comparison.

The following is an example of this:

"Prosperity in a virtuous man creates self-restraint; it is mentioned as a blessing in the Old Testament, yet even there it is associated with many fears and distastes. Adversity, on the other hand, produces fortitude in a virtuous man; it is spoken of as a blessing in the New Testament, and always has many comforts and hopes."

“The virtue of prosperity is temperance, the virtue of adversity is fortitude. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament. Adversity is the

Figures of Relativity.

LIBRA

University of

MICHIG

Mstastes, the

blessing of the New. The one is not without many fears and other is not without comforts and hopes."-BACON.

§ 78. VARIOUS FORMS OF ANTITHESIS.

Antithesis assumes a number of specific forms which were all carefully classified and defined by the old rhetoricians. Although these are not often mentioned by name at the present day, the consideration of them is of value, as showing the various manifestations of this important figure.

$ 79. ANTIMETABOLE.

The order of the words is reversed in each member of the antithesis. This is called "antimetabole :"

"Be wisely worldly, but not worldly wise."-
"—QUARLES.
"A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits."-POPE.
"'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild."-Collins.
"He best can paint them who can feel them most.”—POPE.

"Where ignorance is bliss,

'Tis folly to be wise."-GRAY.

"Beautiful as sweet!

And young as beautiful! and soft as young!
And gay as soft! and innocent as gay!"-Young.

§ 80. PARADIASTOLE.

Things which are similar, or have something in common, are set in opposition and distinguished from one another. This is called "paradiastole :"

"Life only avails, not the having lived."-EMERSON.

"Eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, blood for blood, measure for measure. Give, and it shall be given. He that watereth, shall be watered himself."

§ 81. SYNECEOSIS, OR ENANTIOSIS.

Things of an opposite or different nature are contrasted with one another. This is called "synœceosis," and also "enantiosis :"

"Polarity, or action and reaction, we meet in every part of nature, in darkness and light, in heat and cold, in the ebb and flow of waters, in male and female, in the inspiration and expiration of plants and animals, in the systole and diastole of the heart."-EMERSON.

"Every sweet has its sour, every evil its good."-EMERSON.

66

'Opinions may make a man a heretic, but that they make a traitor I have never heard till now."-EARL OF STRAfford.

"My hold on the colonies is the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties which, though light as air, yet are strong as links of iron."BURKE.

"To a shape like this, so small yet so comprehensive, so slight yet so lasting, so insignificant yet so venerable, turns the mighty activity of Homer, and so turning is enabled to live and warm us forever."-LEIGH HUNT.

"High interest, bad security."-DUKE OF Wellington.

"But thousands die without or this or that,
Die, and endow a college or a cat."-POPE.

§ 82. OXYMORON.

There is a peculiar kind of antithesis which arises from the opposition of two contradictory terms. To this the name "oxymaron" is given, by which is meant the saying of that which appears foolish, but yet is wise. It unites words of contrary signification, and produces a seeming contradiction:

"Travelling is a fool's paradise."-EMERSON.

"He carries ruins to ruins."-EMERSON.

"The borrower runs in his own debt."-EMERSON.

"Take, O take those lips away,

Which so sweetly were forsworn."-SHAKESPEARE.

"How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,

How complicate, how wonderful is man,

An heir of glory, a frail child of dust.

Helpless immortal, insect infinite,

A worm or God. I tremble at myself.

O what a miracle is man to man;

Triumphantly distressed, what joy, what dread,

Alternately transported and alarmed."-EDWARD Young.

"Poor rich man, he can hardly know anything of industry in its exertions, or can estimate its compensations when work is done.”—BURKE, "O illustrious disgrace! O victorious defeat!"-BURKE.

§ 83. PARISON, ISOCOLON.

Sometimes antithetical clauses of similar construction follow in a series. This is called "parison," and also “isocolon." Here word is contrasted with word, and clause with clause, and the