a figure of speech of very frequent occurrence both in written and oral discourse. As its etymon implies, it signifies a shooting or throwing beyond or over the mark. Popularly, it denotes an over-shooting of the truth in the description of anything; by exaggerating qualities that really do exist in it without introducing new ones. Bolingbroke cleverly alludes to it as a figure that lies without deceiving. Hyperboles diminish as well as exaggerate; but though there are many good instances of diminishing hyperboles, most writers succeed better in those of the opposite kind. A good illustration of a diminishing hyperbole is that quoted by Longinus from a comic poet who describes a character in one of his plays as "possessing an estate smaller than a laconic despatch." Talking of a thin man, Shakespear describes him as "so gaunt, the case of a flagellet was a mansion for him." Swift, describing a lion of more than ordinary fierceness, says of him:

"He roared so loud, and looked so very grim, That his own shadow durst not follow him!"

Hyperbole is a favourite figure with the poets of all times and nations. In the specimens of ancient Oriental prose that have reached us, we find numerous examples. In the Talmud, for instance, a man hewing wood beside the pool of the Jordan, is asked if the water is deep there. "So deep," he said, "that an axe-head of mine which slipped in there seven years ago has not yet reached the bottom." The poetry, and even the ordinary conversation of Oriental nations are, for the most part, mere tissues of hyperbole. To the less warm imaginations of the West, they sound bombastic and even absurd; and if taken literally, they undoubtedly are so. When analyzed, however, they are found to be hardly more extravagant than those that pass current among moderns without creating the least surprise. Our most ordinary compliments are, in this way, as truly hyperbolic as the highhown civilities of the East.

How far hyperbole may be carried cannot be fixed by any precise rule. Good sense, and a refined taste, will best determine beyond what point it becomes absurd. Longinus compares a hyperbole carried too far, to a bow-string which relaxes by overstraining, and produces an effect opposite to what is intended. Few English writers err so much in this respect, and seemingly in mere wantonness, as Shakespear:

"Three times they breathed, and three times did they drink, Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood; Who then affrighted with their bloody looks, Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds, And hid his crisp-head in the hollow bank, Blood-stained with these valiant combatants."

And again—

"His brandish'd sword did blind men with its beams; His arms spread wider than a dragon's wings; His sparkling eyes replete with awful fire, More dazzled, and drove back his enemies, Than mid-day sun fierce bent against their faces."

Milton is often as guilty of the same offence:

"Me miserable! which way shall I fly Infinite wrath, and infinite despair? Which way I fly is hell! myself am hell! And in the lowest deep a lower deep Still threatening to devour me opens wide, To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven."

Pope himself sometimes forgets his good taste:

"Swift Camilla scours the plains; Flies o'er the unending corn, and skims along the main." Probably, however, there never was a writer who did not occasionally lapse into hyperbole. As a general rule, too, it may be said that every parable, proverb, epigram, or bon mot, to say nothing of the utterances that form what has been called the "small change" of books and social life, is a hyperbole.