MISCELLANEOUS ALLUSIONS. 99 Two historical facts and two Herods are alluded to in these lines. Herod the Great "slaughtered the innocents" at Bethlehem, and the first Herod Agrippa was "devoured by worms," as is related in the 12th chapter of "The Acts of the Apostles." These histories are suggested, and the expressions are clothed with beauty by the poet. "When I think," says Carlyle, “that Music is condemned to be mad, and to burn herself on such a funeral pile, your celestial operahouse grows dark." Here allusion is made to the old Hindoo custom of suttee, or of the voluntary burning of the widow on the funeral pile of her husband. How pleasant is the allusion to Dr. Franklin's discovery of the identity of electricity and lightning by Thomas Hood, in a poem on the pleasures of childIt seems also that in childhood he "wrote compositions:" hood! "My kite-how fast and far it flies! My pleasure from the sky! 'Twas papered o'er with studious themes, So grave a historian as Merivale draws an illustration from pugilism when he represents Rome as "squaring with the world."* Webster, in his beautiful description of the Bunker Hill Monument, says: "Nor does the rising sun cause tones of music to issue from its summit." * Merivale's History of the Romans under the Empire (London, 1862, vol. vii. p. 380). Who would suppose that the sun would draw music out of a pile of stone, had he not heard of the famous statue of Memnon in Egypt, of which Herodotus relates that the rays of the morning sun evoked music from the rock? But we must end these illustrations, for we find their supply "Thick as the autumnal leaves that strew the brooks Of Vallombrosa." 24. The Innuendo.-What has been called Innuendo, or Insinuation, falls properly under the head of Allusion. It is however generally confined to obscure allusions to objects or facts that tend to lower our estimation of the person or sentiment which we are describing. Thus Burke, in his celebrated speech on American taxation, described General Conway as having be friended Americans by a motion in Parliament, but intimated that he was now betraying their cause for a bribe. "All England, all America joined in his applause. 'Hope elevated, and joy brightened his crest.' I stood near him; and his face, to use the expression of the Scripture of the first martyr, 'his face was as it had been the face of an angel.' I do not know how others feel, but if I had stood in that situation, I never would have exchanged it for all that kings in their profusion could bestow." The covert meaning of the last expression is evident. 25. Pedantic Allusions. Some allusions are so learned as to be justly termed pedantic, unless there is good reason to believe that the persons addressed are familiar with the subject. RULES ON ALLUSIONS. 26. Practical Directions. 101 The following practical directions on this subject should be observed: (1.) Let the allusion spring up spontaneously from a thought in the mind, and not be laboriously sought by consulting a cyclopædia simply for the occasion. (2.) Let the allusion be appropriate, and really add force or beauty to the sentiment. (3.) Let it be suited to the occasion, and be drawn from subjects familiar to the persons addressed, and not degrade nor elevate the sentiment inappropriately. (4.) If it is obscure, interpose a word of explanation so that it may be understood. Abundant information, a prerequisite to genuine eloquence, will exhibit itself largely in comparisons and allusions. CHAPTER IV. METAPHORS. 27. Definitions and Examples.-A METAPHOR is an implied comparison. One great source of the power of a metaphor is its condensation. Every trope may be regarded as a metaphor, but there are metaphors that can not be called tropes. A trope consists of a single expression, a metaphor may consist of many words. In a metaphor the words—whether used literally or not-actually suggest a conception different from their original signification. In a trope one word is used in a figurative sense; in a metaphor the idea expressed by the whole sentence is to be understood in a figurative sense. The sentence "Sin, though sometimes sweet, is always bitter," contains two tropes, sweet and bitter being used out of their natural sense. But Dr. South, speaking of sin, says: "Sin is bitter-sweet; the fine colors of the serpent by no means make amends for the poison of his sting." This last sentence, though true literally, is also true figuratively, and it is the figurative sense attached to it that makes it a metaphor. In this sense it means that, just as the fine colors of a serpent will not NATURE OF METAPHORS. 103 make amends for the poison of his sting, so the pleas ures of sin will not recompense for its punishment. 28. Metaphors resolvable into Comparisons.—Every metaphor may be resolved into a comparison, but the use of a metaphor does not always imply a clear conception of the comparison. The analogy or likeness between two things or actions may be so striking that the language which literally describes the first may also suggest the second, and a man may use the language to describe the second, without having any thought of the first. When one says, "The sun has retired to rest for the night," the hearer may not think that, "as a weary man retires to his bed, so the sun has disappeared in the west," but he would simply think-the sun has set. "Petrarch relighted the torch of ancient learning." Here is presented the idea of a man lighting a torch that had been extinguished: as it is a "torch of ancient learning," we think of Petrarch as studying, editing, and publishing the writings of the Greek and Roman authors, which had been for some time forgotten, till he brought them once more to public notice. Generally, when a metaphor is used, the meaning of it is easily perceived without the necessity of resolving it into a formal comparison, and without any consciousness that it implies a comparison. An illustration of the condensation of a comparison into a metaphor is given by Spence, as follows: "As, in passing through the crystal, beams of white light are decomposed into the colors of the rainbow, so, in traversing the soul of the poet, the colorless rays of |