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mostly the same that are used in the first, only the construction and the arrangement are inverted, as in this passage: "The old may inform the young, and the young may animate the old."* In Greek and Latin this kind of antithesis generally receives an additional beauty from the change made in the inflection, which is necessary in those ancient languages for ascertaining what in modern tongues is ascertained solely by the arrangement.† This obtains sometimes, but more rarely, in our own language, as in these lines of Pope :

"Whate'er of mongrel no one class admits,

A wit with dunces, I and a dunce with wits." Something pretty similar is also to be remarked when the words in the contrasted members remain the same under different inflections, the construction varied, but not inverted. And this is the last variety of the antithesis that I shall specify, for to enumerate them all would be impossible. You have an example of this kind of contrast in the last line of the following couplet :

"Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease,

Whom folly pleases, | and-whose follies please."

I shall now consider both what the merit of the antithesis is, and to what kind of composition it is best adapted. It hath been remarked already, and cannot be justly questioned, that it often contributes both to vivacity and perspicuity; on the other hand, it hath been charged with bearing the manifest signatures both of artifice and of puerility:

* Dedication to the Dissertation on Parties.

† An instance of this is that given by Quint., 1. ix., c. iii. "Non ut edam vivo, sed ut vivam edo." A literal translation into English, "I do not live that I may eat, but I eat that I may live," preserves the antithesis, but neither the vivacity nor the force of the original. The want of inflection is one reason of the inferiority, but not the only reason. It weakens the expression that we must employ fifteen words for what is expressed in Latin with equal perspicuity in eight. Perhaps it would be better rendered, though not so explicitly, "I do not live to eat, but I eat to live." Another example in point is the noted epigram of Ausonius :

"Infelix Dido, nulli bené, nupta marito.

Hoc pereunte, fugis; hoc fugiente, peris."

But though it is chiefly in this sort, which the ancients called avriμsTaboλn, that the advantage of varied inflections appears, it is not in this sort only. In all antitheses, without exception, the similar endings of the contrasted words add both light and energy to the expression. Nothing can better illustrate this than the compliment paid to Cæsar by Cicero, in his pleading for Ligarius: "Nihil habet nec fortuna tua majus quam ut possis, nec natura tua melius quam ut velis, conservare quam plurimos." This, perhaps, would appear to us rather too artificial. But this appearance ariseth merely from the different structure of modern languages. What would in most cases be impossible to us, the genius of their tongue rendered not only easy to them, but almost unavoidable. Dunciad, b. iv.

Pope's Imitations of Horace, b. ii., Ep. ii.

of artifice, because of the nice adjustment of the correspond.. ent clauses; of puerility, because of the supposed insignificance of the task of balancing words and syllables. The lat"ter of these charges results so entirely from the former, that an answer to one is an answer to both. It is solely the appearance of artifice that conveys the notion of a task, and thereby gives rise to the charge of childishness. If, therefore, in any instance an antithesis cannot be reckoned artificial, it will not, at least on account of the expression, be deemed puerile.

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It was remarked, when I entered on the consideration of this figure, that it sometimes ariseth so naturally from the subject as to appear inevitable. This particularly is the case where a comparison is either directly made or only hinted. Samuel, we are told, said to Agag, immediately before he killed him, "As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women. The sentiment here expressed, namely, that the treatment which the tyrant was to receive was due to him by the law of retaliation, rendered some antithesis in the words scarcely avoidable. Yet the antithesis in this passage is more in the thought than in the expression, as the words in the contrasted clauses are not opposed to each other with that nicety which many authors would have employed.

But, though accuracy of opposition may on some occasions have a very good effect, this will never be the case where it gives rise to anything that appears forced in the construction, unnatural in the arrangement, or unharmonious in the cadence. Nature, ease, and fluency are first to be regarded. In the two following examples you have precision in the contrast, without the appearance of too much art in the expression. "Beware of the ides of March," said the Roman augur to Julius Cæsar. "Beware of the month of May," says the British Spectator to his fair countrywomen. Again, "I must observe, that as in some climates there is a perpetual spring, so in some female constitutions there is a perpetual May." In either instance, if the comparison itself escape censure, the expression will be pronounced faultless. An antithesis, therefore, doth not always necessarily imply art and if in some instances it doth to a certain degree imply art, it ought to be remembered that there are some kinds of composition which not only admit, but even require, a more elaborate diction than other kinds, and that in every kind of composition there are some parts wherein even the display of art is more allowable than in other parts. The observations with regard to the proper subjects for periods will very nearly answer here, and therefore need not be repeated.

* 1 Sam., XV., 33.

† Spectator, No., 395, X.

The antithesis, it is thought, is particularly unfavourable to persuasion, and therefore quite unfit for the more vehement and argumentative parts of a discourse. This is true of some sorts of antithesis (for they differ greatly in their nature), but it is not true of all. It is true of such as are sometimes found in long and complicated sentences, but it is not true of those which sentences of a less compound nature may admit. The enthymeme itself, the common syllogism of orators, is often successfully cast into this mould. Demetrius Phalereus, in his treatise of elocution, hath given us an example of this, from one of the most eloquent orations of Demosthenes against his famous rival. The example, translated into English, equally suits our present purpose. 66 For as, if any of those had then been condemned, || you would not now have transgressed; so if you should now be condemned, || others will not hereafter transgress.”* The sentence is, besides, a perfect period, consisting of two members, each of which is subdivided into two clauses. I shall give the same argument with as little apparent antithesis as possible, by imitating the attempt which Demetrius hath made to express the sense in a looser manner. "Do not overlook this transgression of your laws; for if such transgressors were punished, this man would not now have acted as he hath done; nor will another do so afterward, if he should be condemned on this occasion." The argument is the same, though much less forcibly, and even less naturally expressed. But if the enthymeme is often cast into the form of antithesis, we may say of the dilemma, a species of argument in like manner frequent with orators, that it is hardly susceptible of another form, as in that given by Cicero: "If he is a bad man, why do you associate with him? if he is a good man, why do you accuse him?" Nor are these the only sorts of argument that may be used in this manner. There is hardly any which may not in some cases derive both light and energy from this figure. What can be more cogently urged, or better adapted for silencing contradiction, than the answer which Balaam gave Balak, who used various expedients to induce him to turn the blessing he had pronounced on Israel into a curse? Yet the prophet's reply runs wholly in antithesis. "God is not a man, || that he should lie; neither the son of man, || that he should re

* Περι Έρμ. ΛΑ. Ωσπερ γαρ ει τις εκεινων ἑαλω, συ τα δ' ουκ αν εγραψας· οὕτως αν συ νυν άλως, αλλος ου γραψει.

† Περι Ερμ. ΛΑ. Μη επιτρέπετε τοις τα πυράνομα γραφουσιν ειγαρ εκωλύοντο, ουκ αν νυν οὗτος ταύτα εγραψεν ουδ' έτερος ετι γραψει, τουτου νυν ἁλῶντος.

De Inventione, lib. i. As the antithesis in the words is more perfect, and the expression more simple in the Latin than it is possible to render them in a translation into any modern tongue, so the argument itself appears more forcible. Si improbus est, cur uteris? sin probus, cur accusas ?"

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pent. Hath he said, || and shall he not do it? . . or hath he spoken, || and shall he not make it good ?"* In the same antithetic form the Psalmist disposeth his argument in support of the Divine knowledge. "He that planted the ear, || shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, || shall he not see?"† He argues from the effect to the cause, the only way in which we can argue intelligibly concerning the Divine attributes. But it would not be easy, I imagine, to give in so few words either a more perspicuous or a more persuasive turn to the reasoning. It is not, then, every kind of antithesis that either savours of artifice or is unsuited to persuasion.

One thing to which it seems agreed on all sides that this figure is particularly adapted, is the drawing of characters. You hardly now meet with a character, either in prose or in verse, that is not wholly delineated in antithesis. This usage is perhaps excessive. Yet the fitness of the manner can scarcely be questioned, when one considers that the contrasted features in this moral painting serve to ascertain the direction and boundaries of one another with greater precision than could otherwise be accomplished. It is too nice a matter, without the aid of this artifice, for even the most copious and expressive language. For a specimen in this way take these lines of Pope :

"Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,

Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne,
View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes,
And hate for arts that caused himself to rise;
Damn with faint praise, || assent with civil leer,
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, || and yet-afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, I and-hesitate dislike;
Alike reserved to blame or to commend,
A tim'rous foe, I by flatterers besieged,
And so obliging || that he ne'er obliged."+

With what a masterly hand are the colours in this picture blended! and how admirably do the different traits, thus opposed, serve, as it were, to touch up and shade one another! I would not be understood by this to signify my opinion of its likeness to the original. I should be sorry to think that it deserves this praise. The poet had received, or fancied he had received, great provocation. A perfect impartiality in one under the influence of resentment is more than can be expected from human nature. I only speak of the character here exhibited, as one who, speaking of a portrait, without knowing the person for whom it was drawn, says it was well painted, and that there is both life and expression in the countenance.

If there be any style of composition which excludes an* Numb., xxxii., 19. + Psalm xciv., 9.

Prologue to the Satires.

tithesis altogether (for I am not positive that there is), it is the pathetic. But the true reason which hath induced some critics immoderately to decry this figure is, that some authors are disposed immoderately to employ it. One extreme

naturally drives those who perceive the error to the opposite extreme. It rarely leaves them, even though persons of good sense and critical discernment, precisely where they were before. Such is the repulsive power of jarring tastes. Nay, there is a kind of mode, which in these, as well as in other matters, often influences our censures without our knowing it. It is this which sometimes leads us to condemn as critics what as authors we ourselves practice. Witness the following reproach from the author just now quoted.

"I see a chief who leads my chosen sons,

All arm'd with points, antitheses, and puns."

On the other hand, it is certain that, the more agreeable the apposite and temperate use of this figure is, the more offensive is the abuse, or, which is nearly the same, the immoderate use of it. When used moderately, the appearance of art, which it might otherwise have, is veiled, partly by the energy of the expression, which doth not permit the hearer at first to attend critically to the composition, and partly by the simplicity, or, at least, the more artless structure, both of the preceding sentences and of the following. But if a discourse run in a continued string of antithesis, it is impossible the hearer should not become sensible of this particularity. The art is in that case quite naked. Then, indeed, the frequency of the figure renders it insipid, the sameness tiresome, and the artifice insufferable.

The only original qualities of style which are excluded from no part of a performance, nay, which ought, on the contrary, to pervade the whole, are purity and perspicuity. The others are suited merely to particular subjects and occasions. And if this be true of the qualities themselves it must certainly be true of the tropes and figures which are subservient to these qualities. In the art of cookery, those spiceries which give the highest relish must be used the most sparingly. Who, then, could endure a dish wherein these were the only ingredients? There is no trope or figure that is not capable of a good effect; I do not except those which are reckoned of the lowest value, alliteration, paronomasis, or even pun. But then the effect depends entirely on the circumstances. If these are not properly adjusted, it is always different from what it was intended to be, and often the reverse.

The antithesis, in particular, gives a kind of lustre and emphasis to the expression. It is the conviction of this that

* Dunciad.

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