“Weep on the rock of roaring winds, O maid of Inistore; bend thy
    fair head over the waves, thou fairer than the ghost of the hills,
    when it moves in a sun-beam at noon over the silence of Morveu.”

8.  ANTITHESIS.  Comparison is founded on the resemblance, antithesis, on the contrast or opposition, of two objects.

Example. “If you wish to enrich a person, study not to increase his stores, but to diminish his desires."

9.  HYPERBOLE or EXAGGERATION consists in magnifying an object beyond its natural bounds.  “As swift as the wind; as white as the snow; as slow as a snail;” and the like, are extravagant hyperboles.

    “I saw their chief, tall as a rock of ice; his spear, the blasted
    fir; his shield, the rising moon; he sat on the shore, like a cloud
    of mist on the bills.”

10.  VISION is produced, when, in relating something that is past, we use the present tense, and describe it as actually, passing before our eyes.

11.  INTERROGATION.  The literal use of an interrogation, is to ask a question; but when men are strongly moved, whatever they would affirm or deny with great earnestness, they naturally put in the form of a question.

Thus Balaam expressed himself to Balak:  “The Lord is not man, that he should lie, nor the son of man, that he should repeat.  Hath he said it? and shall he not do it?  Hath he spoken it? and shall he not make it good?” “Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like him?”

12.  EXCLAMATIONS are the effect of strong emotions, such a surprise, admiration, joy, grief, and the like.

    “O that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of way-faring men!”
    “O that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be
    at rest!”

13.  IRONY is expressing ourselves in a manner contrary to our thoughts; not with a view to deceive, but to add force to our remarks.  We can reprove one for his negligence, by saying, “You have taken great care, indeed.”

The prophet Elijah adopted this figure, when he challenged the priests of Baal to prove the truth of their deity.  “He mocked them, and said.  Cry aloud for he is a god:  either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is on a journey, or, peradventure, he sleepeth, and must be waked.”

14.  AMPLIFICATION or CLIMAX consists in heightening all the circumstances of an object or action, which we desire to place in a strong light.

Cicero gives a lively instance of this figure, when he says, “It is a crime to put a Roman citizen in bonds:  it is the height of guilt to scourge him; little less than parricide to put him to death:  what name, then, shall I give to the act of crucifying him?”

KEY.

Corrections of the False Syntax arranged under the Rules and Notes.