Of this kind of effect, Coleridge says: Such repetitions I admit to be a beauty of the highest kind; as illustrated by Mr. Wordsworth himself from the song of Deborah. "At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down at her feet he bowed, he fell where he bowed, there he fell down dead."

PERSONIFICATION.

1. Our deep and permanent impression of the features and aspects of persons, coupled with emotional interest, leads to the transfer of human feelings to Inanimate things.

This is named PERSONIFICATION, and enters into all the emotional Qualities.

The interest of Nature will recur at various points in the exposition. It is enough here to distinguish the two modes of its operating, in accordance with the two intellectual forces, named Similarity and Contiguity. (See FIGURES OF SPEECH, p. 135.) Similarity or Resemblance is the groundwork of Personification as now to be explained. Contiguous Association expresses an entirely different class of emotional effects-those arising from the habitual conjunction of outward things with our feelings, as the various localities where we have passed our days, and the objects that mark the recurrence of our avocations. (See ART EMOTIONS CLASSIFIED, § 15, p. 9.)

A mountain viewed as a gravitating mass, of a certain magnitude, and made up of particular materials, has a kind of interest from its bearings on industrial utility or natural defence; but these are not the precise circumstances that make it sublime, or grand, or imposing. A great engineer gave as his idea of a river that it was intended to feed canals; this is considerably remote from the conception of a poetic or artistic mind. Tennyson's Brook' will at once show the contrast.

The human form, physiognomy, movements and expression, are not merely repeated in less perfect resemblance in the lower animals, but imitated in the vegetable and mineral worlds, although with considerable disparity: while our sociable emotions are evoked by such resemblances and imitations.

In imitating humanity by dead matter, the fullest reproduction is a coloured model, which can give a single aspect of an individual person with exactness of detail. Next is the ordinary painter's portrait, by which we are affected nearly in the same way as by the original. In the absence of colour, mere form, as in a statue, or an outline drawing, will awaken the emotions of personality. On such foundations are reared the corresponding Fine Arts, by whose means our interest in persons is greatly multiplied.

The child's doll is an example of personification, based on resemblance to living humanity, whereby a fictitious relationship of mother and child is made up and acted on, so as to gratify the nascent pleasures of maternity.

There is a step beyond all such purposed resemblances. Any accidental similarity to a human feature arising in the outer world has the power of suggesting humanity and so enlarging our human interest. A face in a rock; the branching arms of a tree; the upright attitude, massive form and supporting agency of a column; the drooping head of a flower; the semblance of an open, yawning mouth, or a pair of eyes, -are able to awaken our conceptions of humanity with its perennial emotions.

Yet more effective than resemblances to form and features in stillness, is the suggestion of Movement and force by material objects. Action is always more exciting than repose; the forces of Nature awaken in us the sense of power, whether as exerted by ourselves or by our fellows. A rushing stream, the tides and waves of the ocean, the tempests of wind, the volcanic upheavings, the agency of steam power, the electric battery, the explosives of chemistry,-are suggestive of energy, and may receive from us a personal interpretation.

Even dead weight, pressure, resistance, as in mountain masses, is conceived as analogous to the exercise of human might.

Strange to say, the enormous disparity in all the accompanying circumstances does not interfere with our

NEED OF STRONG EMOTION.

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tracing resemblances to humanity, and indulging the corresponding emotions. So pleased are we to have our human affections continually kept in exercise, that we draw nourishment for them from the most unlikely sources. Nevertheless, the disparity needs to be taken into account, as an abatement of the influence.

In Pagan times, natural objects-as the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the Sky, the Ocean, rivers, trees, groves-were endowed with mind, and regarded as deities. This effect (it is now supposed), grew out of a class of influences distinct from the foregoing. Nevertheless, it operated in the way of imparting human emotions and purposes to the objects of inanimate nature; and the idea is fictitiously retained in poetry, while the belief has passed away.

The worship of stocks and stones is now shown to be not personification, as sometimes believed, but hallowed personal associations. The same also with sacred spots, groves and fountains, connected with some deity.

Wordsworth left behind him an inscription on a piece of shapeless rock. It had struck his fancy somehow, from constantly meeting his eye in his walks.

And from the builder's hand this Stone,
For some rude beauty of its own,

Was rescued by the Bard.

The interest could hardly amount to personification; yet, by the play of his own feelings while gazing upon it, he could work himself into an emotional fervour.

2. The principal conditions for the effective employment of Personification in awakening emotion are, first, the stimulus of some great leading emotion.

To give the interest aimed at in poetry through this special means, the imitation must express or embody one or more of our chief emotions-Power, Malevolence or Love. It requires a strong feeling to break through the immense difference between an oak and a powerful man, the sighing of the wind and a sorrowful utterance from a being like ourselves; whence the most emotional natures are the most readily touched. Shelley and Wordsworth indulge in flights of Personification that colder minds cannot approach or easily sympathise with. See, for example, Wordsworth's Lines Written in Early Spring,' where we have this saying—

And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes;

and this

The budding twigs spread out their fan

To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.

In fact, the Nature interest of Wordsworth is for the most part mingled with human thought and feeling. Hence, in the 'Ode on Immortality,' he bursts forth-

Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,

To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

But, apart from such interest in nature, a bold personification needs strong feeling to support it, as in these examples.

Browning thus represents the feelings of a lady whose honour has been assailed, when a champion suddenly steps forward to vindicate her cause :

North, South,

East, West, I looked. The lie was dead,
And damned, and truth stood up instead.

A lover serenading his mistress, and receiving no response, is made by the same poet to speak thus:

Oh, how dark your villa was,

Windows fast and obdurate!
How the garden grudged me grass
Where I stood-the iron gate
Ground its teeth to let me pass!

There is dramatic propriety in thus representing strong feeling as interpreting nature in harmony with itself. The play of fancy in the last line carries the principle to its extreme length.

The same dramatic propriety leads to the combination of Hyperbole with Personification in the expression of love. For example, in 'Maud'

The slender acacia would not shake

One long milk-bloom on the tree;

The white lake-blossom fell into the lake,

As the pimpernel dozed on the lea;

But the rose was awake all night for your sake,

Knowing your promise to me;

The lilies and roses were all awake,

They sighed for the dawn and thee.

DEGREE OF SIMILARITY.

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The personifications of intense sorrow may be seen abundantly in Shelley's 'Adonais'.

3. Second. The amount of similarity, as compared with the diversity, must be enough to justify the departure from actual fact.

The personifying process, being a case of similitude, is subject to the laws formerly laid down for Figures of Similarity. Great disparity or irrelevance is hostile to the success of the operation. There is a conflict between the avidity of the mind for the emotional effect and the repugnance caused by the accompanying unlikeness.

In the sustained Personification of Wordsworth's 'Ode to Duty,' the similarity is occasionally vague.

ample :—

Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong;

For ex

And the most ancient Heavens through Thee are fresh and strong. In Ossian, Personification is often used with insufficient basis of resemblance: as- Rise, Moon, thou daughter of the sky, look from between thy clouds'.

The effect of the sun beating on a rider during a desperate ride, is thus expressed by Browning:

The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh.

The similarity, though not great, is fitting, and the personification appropriate.

As with other similitudes, less of actual resemblance is demanded, provided some striking effect is gained by the personification. Thus Keats says of the nightingale :—

She sings but to her love, nor e'er conceives

How tip-toe night holds back her dark-grey hood.

4. Third. The effect is favoured by a measured comparison with human might.

When the great impersonal powers-as the ocean, the rivers, the winds, earthquakes-come into comparison or collision with human beings singly or collectively, and establish their vast superiority, the feeling of might is more strongly brought home to our minds.

It is this effect that Byron works up in the stanzas on the Ocean. There is personification throughout, and comparison is sustained by such touches as this: • Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain'.