When sapless age, and weak unable limbs,
Should bring thy father to his drooping chair.
Shakespear.
By art, the pilot through the boiling deep
And howling tempest, steers the fearless ship.
Iliad xxiii. 385.
Then, nothing loath, th’ enamour’d fair he led,
And sunk transported on the conscious bed.
Odyss. viii. 337.
A stupid moment motionless she stood.
Summer, l. 1336.
8. A circumstance connected with a subject, expressed as a quality of the subject.
Breezy summit.
’Tis ours the chance of fighting fields to try.
Iliad i. 301.
Oh! had I dy’d before that well-fought wall.
Odyss. v. 395.
From this table it appears, that the expressing an effect as an attribute of the cause, is not so agreeable as the opposite expression. The descent from cause to effect is natural and easy: the opposite direction resembles retrograde motion[25]. Panting height, for example, astonish’d thought, are strained and uncouth expressions, which a writer of taste will avoid. For the same reason, an epithet is unsuitable, which at present is not applicable to the subject, however applicable it may be afterward.
Submersasque obrue puppes.
Æneid. i. 73.