Speaking of Henry V.
England ne’er had a King until his time:
Virtue he had, deserving to command:
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.
What should I say? his deeds exceed all speech:
He never lifted up his hand, but conquer’d.
First Part Henry VI. act 1. sc. 1.
Lastly, an hyperbole after it is introduced with all advantages, ought to be comprehended within the fewest words possible. As it cannot be relished but in the hurry and swelling of the mind, a leisurely view dissolves the charm, and discovers the description to be extravagant at least, and perhaps also ridiculous. This fault is palpable in a sonnet which passeth for one of the most complete in the French language. Phillis is made as far to outshine the sun as he outshines the stars.
Le silence regnoit sur la terre et sur l’onde,
L’air devenoit serain, &c.
Collection of French epigrams, vol. 1. p. 66.
There is in Chaucer a thought expressed in a single line, which sets a young beauty in a more advantageous light, than the whole of this much-laboured poem.
Up rose the sun, and up rose Emelie.
SECT. IV.
The means or instrument conceived to be the agent.
IN viewing a group of things, we have obviously a natural tendency to bestow all possible perfection upon that particular object which makes the greatest figure. The emotion raised by the object, is, by this means, thoroughly gratified; and if the emotion be lively, it prompts us even to exceed nature in the conception we form of the object. Take the following examples.
For Neleus’ sons Alcides’ rage had slain.