SECTION XXII.

HYPERBATONS also are to be ranked among the serviceable Figures. An Hyperbaton 1 is a transposing of words or thoughts

Virgil is very happy in his application of this Figure.
-Moriamur, et in media arma ruamus.
Eneid. l. ii. ver. 348.
Me, me, adsum qui feci, in me convertite ferrum.

And again,

Id. lib. ix. ver. 427.

In both these instances, the words are removed out of their right order into an irregular disposition, which is a natural consequence of disorder in the mind.-Dr Pearce.

There is a fine Hyperbaton in the 5th book of Paradise Lost:
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds: pleasant the sun,
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flow'r,
Glist'ring with dew: fragrant the fertile earth
After soft show'rs: and sweet the coming on
Of grateful evening mild: then silent night,
With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heav'n, her starry train,
But neither breath of morn, when she ascends,
With charms of earliest birds: nor herb, fruit, flow'r,
Glist'ring with dew: nor fragrance after show'rs:
Nor grateful ev'ning mild: nor silent night,
With this her solemn bird: nor walk by noon,
Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet.

out of their natural and grammatical order, and it is a figure stamped as it were with the truest image of a most forcible passion.* When men are actuated either by wrath, or fear, or indignation, or jealousy, or any of those numberless passions incident to the mind, which cannot be reckoned up, they fluctuate here, and there, and every where ; are still upon forming new resolutions, and breaking through measures before concerted, without any apparent reason: still unfixed and undetermined, their thoughts are in perpetual hurry; till, tossed as it were by some unstable blast, they sometimes return to their first resolution: so that, by this flux and reflux of passion, they alter their thoughts, their language, and their manner of expression, a thousand times. Hence it comes to pass, that an imitation of these transposi

3

* Longinus here, in explaining the nature of the Hyperbaton, and again in the close of the Section, has made use of an Hyperbaton, or (to speak more truly) of a certain confused and more extensive compass of a sentence. Whether he did this by accident, or design, I cannot determine; though Le Fevre thinks it a piece of art in the Author in order to adapt the diction to the subject.-Dr. Pearce.

This fine remark may be illustrated by a celebrated passage in Shakespeare's Hamlet, where the poet's art has hit off the

146 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME.

tions gives the most celebrated writers the greatest resemblance of the inward workings of nature. For art may then be termed per

strongest and most exact resemblance of nature. The behaviour of his mother makes such impression on the young prince, that his mind is big with abhorrence of it, but expressions fail him. He begins abruptly; but as reflections crowd thick upon his mind, he runs off into commendations of his father. Some time after his thoughts turn again on that action of his mother, which had raised his resentments, but he only touches it, and flies off again. In short, he takes up nineteen lines in telling us, that his mother married again in less than two months after her husband's death :

But two months dead! nay not so much, not two—

So excellent a king, that was to this

Hyperion to a satyr: so loving to my mother,
That he permitted not the winds of heav'n
Visit her face too roughly! Heav'n and earth!
Must I remember?-why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on: yet within a month-
Let me not think-Frailty, thy name is woman!-
A little month-or ere those shoes were old,
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears-why she, evʼn she————
Oh Heav'n! a beast that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer-married with mine uncle,
My father's brother; but no more like my father,
Than I to Hercules! Within a month!
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing of her galled eyes,
She married! Oh most wicked speed!

fect and consummate, when it seems to be nature; and nature then succeeds best, when she conceals what assistance she receives from art.

In Herodotus,* Dionysius the Phocean "For our speaks thus in a Transposition: affairs are come to their crisis; now is the important tnoment, Ionians, to secure your liberty, or to undergo that cruelty and oppression which is the portion of slaves, nay, fugitive slaves. Submit yourselves then to toil and labour for the present. This toil and labour will be of no long continuance: it will defeat your enemies, and guard your freedom." The natural order was this: "O Ionians, now is the time to submit to toil and labour, for your affairs are come to their crisis," &c. But as he transposed the salutation, Ionians, and after having thrown them into consternation, subjoins it; it seems as if fright had hindered him, at setting out, from paying due civility to his audience. In the next place, he inverts the order of the thoughts. Before he exhorts them to" submit to toil and labour," (for that is the end of his exhortation) he mentions the reason why labour and

*Ilerod, 1. 6. c. 11.