The _dog_ is a faithful creature:" here an individual is
put for the species. We sometimes use the "head" for the _person_, and
the "waves" for the _sea_. In like manner, an attribute may be pat for a
subject; as "Youth" for the _young_, the "deep" for the _sea_.

6. PERSONIFICATION or PROSOPOPOEIA is that figure by which we attribute
life and action to inanimate objects. When we say, "The ground _thirsts_
for rain," or, "the earth _smiles_ with plenty;" when we speak of
"ambition's being _restless_," or, "a disease's being _deceitful_;" such
expressions show the facility, with which the mind can accommodate the
properties of living creatures to things that are inanimate.

The following are fine examples of this figure:

"Cheer'd with the grateful smell, old _Ocean smiles_;"

"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and
the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose."

7. AN APOSTROPHE is an address to some person, either absent or dead, as
if he were present and listening to us. The address is frequently made
to a personified object; as, "Death is swallowed up in victory. O
_death!_ where is thy sting? O _grave!_ where is thy victory?"

"Weep on the rock of roaring winds, O _maid_ of Inistore; bend thy
fair head over the waves, thou fairer than the ghost of the hills,
when it moves in a sun-beam at noon over the silence of Morveu."

8. ANTITHESIS. Comparison is founded on the resemblance, antithesis, on
the contrast or opposition, of two objects.

_Example._ "If you wish to enrich a person, study not to _increase_ his
_stores_, but to _diminish_ his _desires."_

9. HYPERBOLE or EXAGGERATION consists in magnifying an object beyond its
natural bounds. "As swift as the wind; as white as the snow; as slow as
a snail;" and the like, are extravagant hyperboles.

"I saw their chief, tall as a rock of ice; his spear, the blasted
fir; his shield, the rising moon; he sat on the shore, like a cloud
of mist on the bills."

10. VISION is produced, when, in relating something that is past, we use
the present tense, and describe it as actually, passing before our eyes.

11. INTERROGATION. The literal use of an interrogation, is to ask a
question; but when men are strongly moved, whatever they would affirm or
deny with great earnestness, they naturally put in the form of a
question.

Thus Balaam expressed himself to Balak: "The Lord is not man, that he
should li