The principal figures of Rhetoric are sixteen; namely, Sim’-i-le, Met’-a-phor, Al’-le-gor-y, Me-ton’-y-my, Syn-ec’-do-che, Hy-per’-bo-le, Vis’-ion, A-pos’-tro-phe, Per-son’-i-fi-ca’-tion, Er-o-te’-sis, Ec-pho-ne’-sis, An-tith’-e-sis, Cli’-max, I’-ro-ny, A-poph’-a-sis, and On-o-ma-to-poe’-ia.

EXPLANATIONS.

I. A Simile is a simple and express comparison; and is generally introduced by like, as, or so:  as, “Such a passion is like falling in love with a sparrow flying over your head; you have but one glimpse of her, and she is out of sight.”—­Colliers Antoninus.  “Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud, and as the early dew that passeth away; as the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney.”—­Hosea, xiii.

   “At first, like thunder’s distant tone,
    The rattling din came rolling on.”—­Hogg.

    “Man, like the generous vine, supported lives;
    The strength he gains, is from th’ embrace he gives.”—­Pope.

OBS.—­Comparisons are sometimes made in a manner sufficiently intelligible, without any express term to point them out.  In the following passage, we have a triple example of what seems the Simile, without the usual sign—­without like, as, or so:  “Away with all tampering with such a question!  Away with all trifling with the man in fetters! Give a hungry man a stone, and tell what beautiful houses are made of it;—­give ice to a freezing man, and tell him of its good properties in hot weather;—­throw a drowning man a dollar, as a mark of your good will;—­but do not mock the bondman in his misery, by giving him a Bible when he cannot read it.”—­FREDERICK DOUGLASS:  Liberty Bell, 1848.

II.  A Metaphor is a figure that expresses or suggests the resemblance of two objects by applying either the name, or some attribute, adjunct, or action, of the one, directly to the other; as,

1.  “The LORD is my rock, and my fortress.”—­Psal., xviii 1.

2.  “His eye was morning’s brightest ray.”—­Hogg.

3.  “An angler in the tides of fame.”—­Id., Q. W.

4.  “Beside him sleeps the warrior’s bow.”—­Langhorne.

5.  “Wild fancies in his moody brain
    Gambol’d unbridled and unbound.”—­Hogg, Q. W.

6.  “Speechless, and fix’d in all the death of wo.”—­Thomson.