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CHAPTER I.

THE GENERAL NATURE OF

TRO PES

CONSIDERED.

$1. The definition of a Trope. § 2. Tropes may extend to Sentences as well as Words. §3. The true difference between Tropes and Figures. § 4. Tropes may become faulty. § 5. They may be fown too thick. § 6. They may be wild and extravagant. § 7. They may be mean and low. § 8. They may be far-fetched and obfcure. § 9. They may be harsh and unfuitable. § 10. They may be finical and fantastic. § 11. They may be filthy and impure: all of which faults are to be carefully avoided, § 12. A method to discover the value of Tropes; and an obfervation concerning the purposes for which they are used.

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Trope is the changing a word or fentence with advantage, from its proper fignification to another meaning. Thus,

for example, GOD is a Rock t.

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Trope

† 2 Sam. xxiii. 3. The Rack of Ifrael spake to me, &c.

Trope lies in the word Rock, which is changed from its original sense, as intending one of the ftrongest works and furest shelters in nature, and is employed to signify that God by his faithfulness and power is the fame fecurity to the foul that trusts in him, which the Rock is to the man that builds upon it, or flies for fafety to its impenetrable recefses. So our LORD, fpeaking of HEROD, fays, ss Go ye and tell that Fox *" Here the word Fex is alienated from its proper meaning, which is that of a beast of prey and of deep cunning, to denote a mischievous or crafty Tyrant, or both. In like manner VIRGIL calls the two Scipio's, Thunderbolts of war ;

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Or the two SCIPIOS, thunderbolts of war,
That roll'd their ruin o'er the Libyan coasts †.

The word Thunderbolt is not to be understood in its original fenfe, but, being transformed into a Trope, signifies the martial terrors, and the rapid and irresistible conquefts of those two renowned generals, the SCIPIONES AFRICANI.

§ 2. A Trope may extend farther than a word, and make up a fentence; or an whole fentence may be tropical. This obfervation QUINTILIAN juftifies, when he calls a Trope, "a change of a word

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Luke xiii 32.

Aut geminos duo fulmina belli
Scipiadas, cladem Libyæ Æneid. vi. ver. 842.

call an Hero

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Ethiopian write, reų i

or bestowing his bracts com ce ma. IS MUC fentences, Subftantives free, na are tropical.

§ 3. The true diftinction between Figures may be easily conceived ince change of a word or fentence in re feme into another, which its very etyme morts; whereas it is the nature of a Figure not to change the fenfe of words, but to illuftrate, enliven, ennoble, or in fome manner or another embellish our discourses: and fo far, and fo far ork, as the words are changed into a different meaning from that which they originally signify, the Orator is obliged to the Tropes, and not to the Figures of Rhetoric.

§ 4. As Tropes infufe a dignity into our language, and fhed a luftre over our expressions, when they are well-chofen and applied; fo, on the other hand, when they are mean in themselves, when they are thrown out without judgment, or are in any other refpect defective and faulty, they

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render

Tropas eft verbi vel fermonis à propriâ fignificatione in aliam cum virtute mutatio. QUINTIL. lib. viii. cap. 6. ab

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CHAPTER I.

THE GENERAL NATURE OF

TRO PES

CONSIDERED.

§ 1. The definition of a Trope. § 2. Tropes may extend to Sentences as well as Words. § 3. The true difference between Tropes and Figures. §4. Tropes may become faulty. § 5. They may be fown too thick. § 6. They may be wild and extravagant. § 7. They may be mean and low. § 8. They may be far-fetched and obfcure. § 9. They may be harsh and unfuitable. § 10. They may be finical and fantastic. 11. They may be filthy and impure: all of which faults are to be carefully avoided, § 12. A method to difcover the value of Tropes; and an obfervation concerning the purposes for which they are used.

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A Trope."

is the changing a word or fentence with advantage, from its proper fignification to another meaning. Thus,

for example, GOD is a Rock †.

* Derived from τρεπων

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Here the
Trope

† 2 Sam. xxiii. 3. The Rack of Ifrael spake to me, &c.

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