A FIGURE, which, among related objects, extends the properties of one to another. This figure is not dignified with a proper name, because it has been overlooked by writers. Giddy brink, jovial wine, daring wound, are examples of this figure. Here are adjectives that cannot be made to signify any quality of the substantives to which they are joined: a brink, for example, cannot be termed giddy in a sense, either proper or figurative, that can signify any of its qualities or attributes. When we examine attentively the expression, we discover, that a brink is termed giddy from producing that effect in those who stand on it: in the same manner, a wound is said to be daring, not with respect to itself, but with respect to the boldness of the person who in-
sists it: and wine is said to be jovial, as inspiring mirth and jollity. Thus the attributes of one subject are extended to another with which it is connected; and the expression of such a thought must be considered as a figure, because the attribute is not applicable to the subject in any proper sense.
How we are to account for this figure, which we see lies in the thought, and to what principle shall we refer it? Have poets a privilege to alter the nature of things, and at pleasure to bestow attributes upon a subject to which they do not belong? It is observed †, that the mind passeth easily and sweetly along a train of connected objects; and, where the objects are intimately connected, that it is disposed to carry along the good or bad properties of one to another; especially when it is in any degree inflamed with these properties. From this principle is derived the figure under consideration. Language, invented for the communication of thought, would be imperfect, if it were not expressive even of the slightest propensities and more delicate feelings: but language cannot remain so imperfect among a people who have received any polish; because language is regulated by internal feeling, and is gradually improved to express whatever passes in the mind. Thus, for example, when a sword in the hand of a coward is termed a coward sword, the expression is significative of an internal operation; for the mind, in passing from the agent to its instrument, is disposed to extend to the latter the properties of the former. Governed by the same principle, we say listening fear, by extending the attribute listening of the man who listens, to the passion with which he is moved. In the expression bold deed, or audax facinus, we extend to the effect what properly belongs to the cause. But not to waste time by making a commentary upon every expression of this kind, the best way to give a complete view of the subject, is to exhibit a table of the different relations that may give occasion to this figure. And in viewing the table, it will be observed, that the figure can never have any grace but where the relations are of the most intimate kind.
1. An attribute of the cause expressed as an attribute of the effect.
Audax facinus.
Of yonder fleet a bold discovery make.
An impious mortall gave the daring wound.
To my adventurous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar. Paradise Lost.
2. An attribute of the effect expressed as an attribute of the cause.
Quos perisse zimbos sidera censebam in mari. Plautus.
No wonder, fallen such a perissus height.
Paradise Lost.
3. An effect expressed as an attribute of the cause.
Jovial wine. Giddy brink. Drowzy night. Musing midnight.
Panting height. Astonish'd thought. Mourneful gloom.
Casting a dim religious light.