in music, is a sort of wind-instrument, being a small pipe. See PIPES.
in geography, a county of Scotland bounded by the Frith of Tay on the north, by the German sea on the east, by the Frith of Forth on the south, and by Monteith and Stirling on the west. It is above 40 miles in length, and 17 in breadth. The face of the country is various. Towards the west it is mountainous; the middle is most proper for pasture; but the northern and southern parts are plain and fertile, producing excellent corn, full of towns, and indented with good bays and harbours. The whole coast is almost covered with fishing-towns; breed a great number of hardy fishermen; and, being all royal boroughs, send many members to parliament. The inland parts of the county are adorned with plantations and woods, affording shelter to deer and all sorts of game. The hills are covered with sheep, whose wool is excellent; and the pastures feed plenty of black cattle. This county also produces quarries of excellent free-stone, coal-mines, and lead-ore in great quantity; together with variegated crystals. It is well watered by many lakes and rivers, the principal of which are the Leven and the Eden, both of which abound with salmon. On the present condition of the county of Fife Dr Campbell has the following observations *. "One would be apt to imagine, that from such an excellent situation, this country must have been distinguished by being wonderfully populous, crowded with towns, and these towns abounding with commerce. Anciently, it seems, it was so; and if it be not in this condition now, the reasons may easily be assigned; it would be well if they could be easily removed. After the accession of king James VI. to the throne of England, the court lords extended what they called the power of the crown; but which, resting in their hands, was, in reality, theirs beyond measure; and this was opposed, for purposes merely their own, by others, who, in right of popularity, exercised also a power more detrimental to the public peace, and not at all more directed to the public good; and thus the true principles of policy were in a manner lost. On the other hand, an unreasonable and ill-timed zeal for forms produced an unreasonable aversion for things indifferent in themselves; and thus, while religion was all the cry, the true spirit of the Christian faith was in a manner extinguished. Party-disputes in church and state, destroying, as they ever will do, all sense of public spirit, made way for a civil war, which ruined the small remains of past prosperity. After the restoration, an oppressive government in one part of the country, which connived, for its own support, at the establishment of a more oppressive aristocracy in the other, extirpated all seeds of industry, and brought on that general decay in Agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, which, however visible, was, till very lately, rather to be lamented, even by the most disinterested patriots, than with any rational hopes of success to be put in any train of being recovered. How-
* Political Survey, l. 202. However distasteful, in one light, the contemplation of its former greatness may be, it cannot but afford us satisfaction in another; for what has once been, may most certainly be again. The country and the climate, without question, are as good as ever; and though the same thing cannot be said of its ports, yet, with some labour and a little expense, even these may be made so; after which, if any method can be found to employ in manufactures, and thereby engage the youth to remain at home, there is no doubt that an indefatigable application may quickly restore what a series of unfortunate accidents, succeeded by supine neglect, have brought into so melancholy a condition."
**Fires-Rails**, in a ship, are those that are placed on balusters, on each side of the top of the poop, and so along with haunches or falls. They reach down to the quarter-deck, and to the stair of the gang-way.
**Fifth**, in music. See **Interval**.
**Fig**, or **Fig-tree**. See **Ficus**.
**Figwort**, a plant called by the botanists **Scrophularia**.
**Figural**, **Figurate**, or **Figurative**, a term applied to whatever is expressed by obscure resemblances. The word is chiefly applied to the types and mysteries of the Mosaic law; as also to any expression which is not taken in its primary and literal sense.
**Figure**, in physics, expresses the surface or terminating extremities of any body.
**Figures**, in arithmetic, are certain characters whereby we denote any number which may be expressed by any combination of the nine digits, &c. See **Arithmetic**.
**Figure**, among divines, is used for the mysteries represented under certain types.
**Figure**, in dancing, denotes the several steps which the dancer makes in order and cadence, considered as they mark certain figures on the floor. See **Dancing**.
**Figure**, in painting and designing, denotes the lines and colours which form the representation of any animal, but more particularly of a human personage. See **Painting**, No. 61—92.
**Figure**, in logic, denotes a certain order and disposition of the middle term in any syllogism.
Figures are fourfold. 1. When the middle term is the subject of the major proposition, and the predicate of the minor, we have what is called the first figure. 2. When the middle term is the predicate of both the premises, the syllogism is said to be in the second figure. 3. If the middle term is the subject of the two premises, the syllogism is in the third figure; and lastly, by making it the predicate of the major, and subject of the minor, we obtain syllogisms in the fourth figure. Each of these figures has a determinate number of moods, including all the possible ways in which propositions differing in quantity or quality can be combined, according to any disposition of the middle term, in order to arrive at a just conclusion. See **Logic**.
**Figure**, in composition. See **Oratory**; also **Allegory**, **Apostrophe**, **Hyperbole**, **Metaphor**, **Personification**, &c.
**A Figure**, the means or instrument conceived to be the agent. When we survey a number of connected objects, that which makes the greatest figure employs chiefly our attention; and the emotion it raises, if lively, prompts us even to exceed nature in the conceptions we form of it. Take the following example:
For Neleus' son Alcides' rage had slain.
A broken rock the force of Pirus threw.
In these instances, the rage of Hercules and the force of Pirus, being the capital circumstances, are so far exalted as to be conceived the agents that produce the effects.
In the following instance, hunger being the chief circumstance in the description, is itself imagined to be the patient.
Whose hunger has not tasted food these three days.
As when the force
Of subterranean wind transports a hill.
Paradise lost.
As when the potent rod
Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day
Wav'd round the coast, speckled a pitchy cloud
Of locusts.
Paradise lost.
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. It merits, however, a place in this work; and must be distinguished from the others elsewhere treated, as depending on a different principle. *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 inflicts 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 are we 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 paffeth easily and sweetly along a train of connected objects; and, where the objects chap. ii. are intimately connected, that it is disposed to carry part i., §. 6. 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 slighter 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 mortal gave the daring wound.
*Paradise lost.* That with no middle flight intends to fear.
2. An attribute of the effect expressed as an attribute of the cause.
*Quos perisse ambos miseris cenobiam in mari.* Plautus. No wonder, fallen such a pernicious height.
*Paradise lost.*
3. An effect expressed as an attribute of the cause.
Jovial wine, Giddy brink, Drowsy night, Musing midnight, Panting height, Alonish'd thought, Mournful gloom.
*Casting a dim religious light.* Milton, Comus. And the merry bells ring round, And the jocund rebecks sound.
*Milton, Allegro.*
4. An attribute of a subject bestowed upon one of its parts or members.
Longing arms. It was the nightingale, and not the lark, That pierc'd the fearful hollow of thine ear.
*Romeo and Juliet, act 3, sc. 7.* Oh, lay by Those most ungentle looks and angry weapons; Unless you mean my griefs and killing fears Should stretch me out at your relentless feet.
*Fair Penitent, act 3.* And ready now To stoop with weariest wing, and willing feet, On the bare outside of this world.
*Paradise lost, b. 3.*
5. A quality of the agent given to the instrument with which it operates.
Why peep your coward swords half out their sheaths?
6. An attribute of the agent given to the subject upon which it operates.
High-climbing hill.
*Milton.*
7. A quality of one subject given to another.
Icel, beatis nunc Arabum invides Gazis. Horat. Carm. i. 1, ode 29. When fables age, and weak unable limbs, Should bring thy father to his drooping chair.
*Shakespeare.* By art, the pilot through the boiling deep, And howling tempest, steers the starless ship.
*Idem xxiii. 385.* Then, nothing loath, th' enamour'd fair he led, And sunk transported on the conscious bed.
*Odyssey viii. 337.* A stupid moment motionless the flood.
*Samson, l. 1336.*
8. A circumstance connected with a subject, expressed as a quality of the subject.
Breezy summit. 'Tis ours the chance of fighting fields to try.
*Idem.* 301. Oh! had I dy'd before that well-fought wall.
*Odyssey v. 395.*
From this table it appears, that the adorning a cause with an attribute of the effect, is not so agreeable as the opposite expression. The progress from cause to effect is natural and easy; the opposite progress resembles retrograde motion; and therefore panting height, often joined thought, are strained and uncouth expressions, which a writer of taste will avoid.
It is not less strained, to apply to a subject in its present state, an epithet that may belong to it in some future state:
Submersa sube obnox puppes.
*Idem.* 73. And mighty rains fall.
*Idem v. 411.* Impious sons their mangled fathers wound.
Another rule regards this figure, That the property of one subject ought not to be bestowed upon another with which that property is incongruous:
K. Rich. —— How dare thy joints forget To pay their awful duty to our presence?
*Richard II.* act 3, sc. 6.
The connection between an awful superior and his submissive dependent is so intimate, that an attribute may readily be transferred from the one to the other; but awfulness cannot be so transferred, because it is inconsistent with submission.