a pleasant spot; but it is too near to Burlesque, and its trade with this place has injured the manners of the inhabitants.

I beg you will notice, in the map, those vast solitudes which lie between High and Low Poetry. They are called the Deserts of Common Sense. There is not a single city in the whole of this extensive country, and only a few cottages scattered at a distance from one another. The interior of the country is beautiful and fertile, but you need not wonder that there are so few that choose to reside in it; for the entrance is very rugged on all sides, the roads are narrow and difficult, and there are seldom any guides to be found capable of conducting strangers.

Besides, this country borders on a province where every person prefers to remain, because it appears to be very agreeable, and saves the trouble of penetrating into the Deserts of Common Sense. It is the province of False Thoughts. Here we always tread on flowers; every thing seems enchanting. But its general inconvenience is, that the ground is not solid; the foot is always sinking in the mire, however careful one may be. Elegy is the capital. Here the people do nothing but complain; but it is said that they find a pleasure in their complaints. The city is surrounded with woods and rocks, where the inhabitant walks alone, making them the confidants of his secrets, of the discovery of which he is so much afraid that he often conjures those woods and rocks never to betray them.

The Empire of Poetry is watered by two rivers: one is the River Rhyme, which has its source at the foot of the Mountains of Reverie. The tops of some of these mountains are so elevated that they pierce the clouds. Those are called the Points of Sublime Thoughts.

Many climb there by extraordinary efforts; but almost the whole tumble down again, and excite, by their fall, the ridicule of those who admired them at first without knowing why. There are large platforms almost at the bottom of these mountains, which are called the Terraces of Low Thoughts. There are always a great number of people walking on them. At the ends of these terraces are the Caverns of Deep Reverie. Those who descend into them do so insensibly, being so much enrapt in their meditations that they enter the caverns before they are aware. These caverns are perfect labyrinths, and the difficulty of getting out again could scarcely be believed by those who have not been there. Above the terraces we sometimes meet with men walking in easy paths, which are called the Paths of Natural Thoughts; and these gentlemen ridicule equally those who try to scale the Points of Sublime Thoughts as well as those who grovel on the terraces below. They would be in the right if they could keep undeviatingly in the Paths of Natural Thoughts, but they fall almost instantly into a snare by entering into a splendid palace which is at a very little distance. It is the Palace of Badinage. Scarcely have they entered it, when, in place of the natural thoughts which they formerly had, they dwell upon such only as are mean and vulgar. Those, however, who never abandon the Paths of Natural Thoughts are the most rational of all. They aspire no higher than they ought, and their thoughts are never at variance with sound judgment.

Besides the River Rhyme, which I have described as issuing from the foot of the mountains, there is another, called the River of Reason.

These two rivers are at a great distance from one another, and, as they have different courses, they could not be made to communicate except by canals, which cost a great deal of labor; for these canals of communication could not be formed at all places, because there is only one part of the River Rhyme which is in the neighborhood of the River Reason; and hence many cities situated on the Rhyme, such as Roundelay and Ballad, could have no commerce with the Reason, whatever pains might be taken for the purpose. Further, it would be necessary that these canals should cross the Deserts of Common Sense, as you will see by the map, and that is almost an unknown country. The Rhyme is a large river, whose course is crooked and unequal, and, on account of its numerous falls, it is extremely difficult to navigate. On the contrary, the Reason is very straight and regular, but does not carry vessels of every burden.

There is in the Land of Poetry a very obscure forest, where the rays of the sun never enter. It is the Forest of Bombast. The trees are close, spreading, and twined into each other. The forest is so ancient that it has become a sort of sacrilege to prune its trees, and there is no probability that the ground ever will be cleared. A few steps into this forest and we lose our road, without dreaming that we have gone astray. It is full of imperceptible labyrinths, from which no one ever returns. The Reason is lost in this forest.

The extensive province of Imitation is very sterile. It produces nothing. The inhabitants are extremely poor, and are obliged to glean in the richer fields of the neighboring provinces; and some even make fortunes by this beggarly occupation.

The Empire of Poetry is very cold toward the north, and consequently this quarter is the most populous. There are the cities of Anagram and Acrostic, with several others of a similar description.

Finally, in that sea which bounds the States of Poetry, there is the Island of Satire, surrounded by bitter waves. The salt from the water is very strong and dark-colored. The greater part of the brooks of this island resemble the Nile in this, that their sources are unknown; but it is particularly remarkable that there is not one of them whose waters are fresh. A part of the same sea is called the Archipelago of Trifles. The French term it l'Archipel des Bagatelles, and their voyagers are well acquainted with those islands. Nature seems to have thrown them up in sport, as she did those of the Egean Sea. The principal islands are the Madrigal, the Song, and the Impromptu. No lands can be lighter than those islands, for they float upon the waters.-FON

TENELLE.

ALLUSION.

§ 433. ALLUSION, from the Latin ad, and ludere, to play, is that figure by which some word or phrase in a sentence calls to mind something which is not mentioned, by means of some similitude.

1. "I was surrounded with difficulties, and possessed no clew by which I could effect my escape." Here the allusion is to Theseus in

the Labyrinth of Crete, who made his escape by means of a clew furnished by Ariadne.

2. In recommending exercise for the cure of the spleen, Green says, Fling but a stone, the giant dies!"

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ANACENOSIS.

§ 434. ANACENOSIS, from the Greek ana, and koinos, common, is a figure in which the speaker appeals to the judgment of his audience on the point in debate, as if they had feelings common with his own.

Suppose, Piso, any one had driven you from your house by violence, how would you have done?-CICERO.

ANADIPLOSIS.

§ 435. ANADIPLOSIS, from the Greek ana, and diploos, double, is the use of the same word or words in the termination of one clause of a sentence and at the beginning of the next.

1. Can Parliament be so dead to their dignity and duty as to give their support to measures thus obtruded and forced upon them; measures, my lords, which have reduced this late flourishing empire to scorn and contempt ?-Lord CHATHAM.

2. "Has he a gust for blood? Blood shall fill his cup."

ANAGRAM.

§ 436. ANAGRAM, from the Greek ana, and gramma, a letter, is the transposition of the letters of a name, by which a new word is formed.

1. The words CHArles James Stuart can be transposed into Claims Arthur's Seat.

2. Astronomers-Moon starers.

ANAPHORA.

§ 437. ANAPHORA, from the Greek anaphero, to carry back, is the repetition of a word at the beginning of several clauses of a sentence, which impresses the idea more distinctly on the mind.

1.

My daughter! with thy name my song begun;
My daughter! with thy name thus much shall end:

I see thee not; I hear thee not; but none

Can be so rapt in thee; thou art the Friend

To whom the shadows of far years extend.—BYRON.

2. A man with no sense of religious duty is he whom the Scriptures

describe in so terse but terrific a manner as "living without God in the world." Such a man is out of his proper being, out of the circle of all his duties, out of the circle of all his happiness, and away, far, far away from the purposes of his creation.-DANIEL WEBSTER.

ANTITHESIS.

§ 438. ANTITHESIS, Greek Antithesis, from anti, and tithemi, to place, is the opposition of words and sentiments, a contrast by which each of the contrasted things is rendered more striking.

1. A Bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; we make up our minds to leave it early, but we 'make up our bodies every morning to keep it late.-LACON.

2.

On parent knees, a naked, new-born child,

Weeping thou sat'st, while all around thee smiled;

So live, that sinking in thy last, long sleep,

Thou then may'st smile, while all around thee weep.-Sir W. JONES.

3. Whether you look up to the top, or down to the bottom; whether you mount with the froth, or sink with the sediment, no rank in this country can support a perfectly degraded name.-Sir PHILIP FRANCIS. 4. To Adam, Paradise was a home; to the good among his descendants, Home is a paradise.-HARE.

ANTONOMASIA.

§ 439. ANTONOMASIA, from the Greek Anti onoma, for a name, is a trope, by which we put a proper name for a common name, or a common name for a proper name; or an office, or profession, or science instead of the true name of a person.

1.

If plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven's design,
Why then a Borgia or a Catiline?-POPE.

Galileo, the Columbus of the heavens.

2.

3.

The Niobe of nations, there she stands,

Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe;
An empty urn within her withered hands,
Whose holy dust was scattered long ago,

APOLOGUE OR FABLE.

§ 440. APOLOGUE, Greek apologos, is a short, fictitious story, founded frequently on supposed actions of brutes or inanimate things, and is not supported by probability.

A DOG, crossing a little rivulet with a piece of flesh in his mouth, saw his own Shadow represented in the clear mirror of the limpid stream, and believing it to be another Dog, who was carrying another

piece of flesh, he could not forbear catching at it, but was so far from getting any thing by this greedy design, that he dropped the piece he had in his mouth, which immediately sunk to the bottom, and was irrecoverably lost.-ESOP.

Application.

He that catches at more than belongs to him, justly deserves to lose what he has.

APOSIOPESIS.

§ 441. APOSIOPESIS, from the Greek aposiopesis, a retaining or suppression, is leaving a sentence unfinished, in consequence of some sudden emotion of the mind. A speaker may thus aggravate what he pretends to conceal, by uttering a part, and leaving the remainder to be understood.

1. The statesman is the leader of a nation, the warrior is the grace of an age, the philosopher is the birth of a thousand years; but the lover-where is he not?-Deerbrook.

2. I can tell him, sir, that Massachusetts and her people, of all people, of all classes, hold him, and his love, and his veneration, and his speeches, and his principles, and his standard of truth, in utter-what shall I say?-any thing but respect.-D. WEBSter.

APOSTROPHE.

§ 442. APOSTROPHE, Greek apo, from, and strophe, a turning, a digressive address, is a figure by which the speaker turns the current of his discourse, and addresses some person or some object different from that to which his discourse had been directed.

1. O ye judges! it was not by human counsel, nor by any thing less than the immediate care of the immortal gods, that this event has taken place. The very divinities themselves, who beheld that monster fall, seemed to be moved, and to have inflicted their vengeance upon him. I appeal to, I call to witness you, O ye hills and groves of Alba! you, the demolished Alban altars! ever accounted holy by the Romans, and coeval with our religion, but which Clodius, in his mad fury, having first cut down and leveled the most sacred groves, had sunk under heaps of common buildings; I appeal to you, I call you to witness, whether your altars, your divinities, your powers, which he had polluted with all kinds of wickedness, did not avenge themselves when this wretch was extirpated? And thou, O holy Jupiter! from the height of thy sacred mount, whose lakes, groves, and boundaries he had so often contaminated with his detestable impurities; and you, the other deities, whom he had insulted, at length opened your eyes to punish