tionally imitates, the sound of the thing
signified or spoken of: as, "Of a knocking at the door, _Rat a tat
tat_."--J. W. GIBBS: _in Fowler's Gram._, p. 334. "_Ding-dong! ding-dong!_
Merry, merry, go the bells, _Ding-dong! ding-dong_!"--_H. K. White_.
"Bow'wow _n._ The loud bark of a dog. _Booth_."--_Worcester's Dict._ This
is often written separately; as, "_Bow wow_."--_Fowler's Gram._, p. 334.
The imitation is better with three sounds: "_Bow wow wow_." The following
verses have been said to exhibit this figure:

"But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar."
--_Pope, on Crit._, l. 369.

OBS.--The whole number of figures, which I have thought it needful to
define and illustrate in this work, is only about thirty. These are the
_chief_ of what have sometimes been made a very long and minute catalogue.
In the hands of some authors, Rhetoric is scarcely anything else than a
detail of figures; the number of which, being made to include almost every
possible form of expression, is, according to these authors, not less than
two hundred and forty. Of their _names_, John Holmes gives, in his index,
two hundred and fifty-three; and he has not all that might be quoted,
though he has more than there are of the forms named, or the figures
themselves. To find a learned name for every particular mode of expression,
is not necessarily conducive to the right use of language. It is easy to
see the inutility of such pedantry; and Butler has made it sufficiently
ridiculous by this caricature:

"For all a rhetorician's rules
Teach nothing but to name his tools."--_Hudibras_, P. i, C. i, l. 90.

SECTION V.--EXAMPLES FOR PARSING.

PRAXIS XIV.--PROSODICAL.

_In the Fourteenth Praxis, are exemplified the several Figures of
Orthography, of Etymology, of Syntax, and of Rhetoric, which the parser may
name and define_; _and by it the pupil may also be exercised in relation to
the principles of Punctuation, Utterance, Analysis, or whatever else of
Grammar, the examples contain_.

LESSON I.--FIGURES OF ORTHOGRAPHY.

MIMESIS AND ARCHAISM.

"I _ax'd_ you what you had to sell. I am fitting out a _wessel_ for
_Wenice_, loading her with _warious keinds_ of _prowisions_, and
_wittualling_ her for a long _woyage_; and I want several _undred_ weight
of _weal, wenison_, &c., with plenty of _inyons_ and _winegar_, for the
_preserwation_ of _ealth_."--_Columbian Orator