Young Students," which its author intended to be simple rather than figurative:

Contemplating the dangers to which you are exposed, the sorrows and dishonour which accompany talents misapplied, and a course of indolence and folly, may you exert your utmost endeavours to avoid them!"

Here are eight substantives of which certain things are asserted; but there is not one of them which represents any object that is cognizable by the senses:

"Contemplating (that is looking at) the dangers to which you are exposed (that is placed among,)" must be merely a metaphorical view; for dangers are contingent evils that may or may not happen.

"Sorrows and dishonour which accompany (that is, go along with) misapplied talents." Sorrows and dishonour are feelings of the mind, and it is a strong figure, indeed, that makes them the companions of talents (that is abilities), however those talents may be applied. It is conduct, not talents, to which dishonour can be associated; and, with respect to sorrows, they, like the showers of heaven, fall equally on the just and the unjust.

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"A course of indolence and folly;" that is, a race, or circuit, of laziness and-stupidity," for this is the only sort of folly connected with indo

lence. The metaphor, it must be confessed, is rather an awkward one.

May you exert your utmost endeavours to avoid them!" That is, "May you put forth your farthest out attempts to keep away from the dangers to which you are (already) exposed."

The whole of the Address is in the same strain. It is a series of metaphors; scarcely referring literally to a single object in nature. This, however, arises from the subject and not from the writer; for nothing that is general, or abstract, can be expressed in other terms. The thoughts and feelings of man have no visible prototype in external nature. All is comparison of imaginary similitudes. The philosophy of the human mind is a science of metaphors.

Since, then, it appears that Metaphor is, necessarily, in possession of the far greater portion of the thoughts which language endeavours to express; it may be asked, what do we mean when we particularize a phrase, or sentence, as being metaphorical? We answer, that, in grammatical usage, the term is applied to such deviations, from the literal meaning of words, or phrases, as have not been incorporated, by custom, into the language. The new allusions are striking, because uncommon; while the customary ones

glide over the eye and the ear, without exciting attention. It is from this cause that we are so surprised at the metaphors employed by distant nations, whether that distance be in time, or in space; and even in those tongues with which we are, in a great degree, familiar, we distinguish, by the name of Idioms, numerous phrases, that differ from our own modes of expression,' He is drowned in debt,' He is over head and ears in love; He is plunged in grief,' &c. are noticed as English idiomatical phrases, by our continental neighbours. Virgil says that the Trojans were buried in sleep and wine when they were surprised by the Greeks:

"Invadunt urbem somno vinoque sepultam."

It has been observed that the salutations of different countries are derived from different metaphors. The English say 'How do you do?' literally,' How do you act?'; the French, comment vous portez-vous? How do you carry yourself?'; and the Dutch, Hoe vaart gy? How do you sail?'

Translations are the chief sources of the introduction of foreign words; and the early authorized translations of the Bible, following principally the text of St. Jerom, inundated the

language with Latin compounds The pulpit (and the press, which was, at one time, almost entirely theological) adopted those new-fangled derivations, and, assisted by the Lawyers and Physicians, we, soon after the invention of printing, had, in many cases, duplicates of words from which we could make a choice. But a language cannot long exist under two forms. One of the synonymous words is either speedily forgotten, or it takes a different department. The Latin intruders are now almost wholly confined to metaphorical meanings. It was not so, however, in former times; in proof of which we shall cite a few examples:

To

TO PROMOTE (Latin promovere) is simply to bring forward; but we could not now say in bringing forward a young actor on the stage, or a culprit to the bar, that he was promoted. promote is now to move a person forward to a more advantageous situation in life:-for instance, to make a Bishop of a Dean. Milton used the Word literally:

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay

To mould me man? Did I solicit thee

From darkness to promote me?"

TO PREVENT (Latin prævenire) is to come before; and as to come before is to be in one's way, the

word now signifies to hinder, that is, to keep another behind. The Liturgy of the church (composed in the time of Edward VI.) has “ prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings," &c. being a prayer that the Lord would go before them, and guide them in all their actions. This literal use of the verb to prevent was not lost sight of in the beginning of the last century; for we find the following lines in Rowe's Lucan :

"Where'er the Battle bleeds, and Slaughter lies, Thither, preventing Birds and Beasts, she hies; Nor then content to seize the ready Prey,

From their fell Jaws she tears the Food away."

To CONVINCE (Latin convincere) is to conquer. It is now used only to conquer in argument; but Shakspeare has its literal sense in Cymbeline:

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Your Italy containes none so accomplish'd a Courtier to convince the Honour of my Mistris." TO PROVOKE (Latin provocare, to call forth) was once understood literally,—as in the Tempest: "Miranda. Wherefore did they not That howre destroy us?

Pros. Well demanded, wench:

My tale provokes that question."

AFFLUENCE (Latin affluentia, from ad and fluens, flowing to) is now appropriated to denote Riches; from which it is distinguishable by considering those riches as continually increasing, or flowing