**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.

**FIGURATE Numbers**. See NUMBERS, Figurate.

**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.

**FIGURE**, in the manufactures, is applied to the various designs represented or wrought on velvets, damasks, taffeties, satins, and other stuffs and cloths.

The most usual figures for such designs are flowers imitated from the life; or grotesques, and compartments of pure fancy. Representations of men, beasts, birds, and landscapes, have only been introduced since the taste for the Chinese stuffs, particularly those called furies, began to prevail among us. It is the woof of the stuff that forms the figures; the warp only serves for the ground. In working figured stuffs there is required a person to show the workman how far he must raise the threads of the warp, to represent the figure of the design with the woof, which is to be passed across between the threads thus raised. This some call reading the design.

For the figures on tapestry, brocade, &c. see TAPESTRY, &c.

For those given by the calenders, printers, &c. see CALENDER, &c.

**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, APOTROPE, 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 examples. 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 first of the following instances, hunger being the chief circumstance in the description, is itself imagined to be the patient.

Whose hunger has not tasted food these three days.

Jane Shore.

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, upcall'd 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. 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 on 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 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 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.

To my advent'rous 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 periisse ambos misero censebam 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, Astonish'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 iii. 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 iii.

And ready now To stoop with wearied wing and willing feet, On the bare outside of this world.

Paradise Lost, book iii.

5. A quality of the agent given to the instrument with which it operates.

Why peep your coward swords half out their shells?

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.

Ieci, beatis nunc Arabum invides Gazis.

Horat. Carm. lib. i. ode 29.

When sapless age, and weak unable limbs, Shall bring thy father to his drooping chair.

Shakespeare. By art, the pilot through the boiling deep, And howling tempest, steers the fearless ship. *Iliad*, book xxiii. l. 385.

Then, nothing loth, th' enamour'd fair he led, And sunk transported on the conscious bed. *Odyssey*, book viii. l. 337.

A stupid moment motionless she stood. *Summer*, 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. *Iliad*, book v. l. 301.

Oh! had I dy'd before that well-fought wall. *Odyssey*, book v. l. 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, astonished thought, are strain'd and uncoast 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:

Submersasque obrne puppes. *Æneid*, book i. l. 73.

And mighty ruinas fall. *Iliad*, book v. l. 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 the property is incongruous.

K. Rich.—How dare thy joints forget To pay their awful duty to our presence? *Ricard II.*, act iii. sc. 6.

The connexion between an awful superior and his submissive dependent is to 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.