Languages & literature > Abridgement of lectures on rhetoric

PERSONIFICATION.
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Milton affords a very beautiful example of this figure
in that moving and tender addrefs, which Eve makes
to Paradife immediately • before fhe is compelled t6
leave it.
Oh, unexpe&ed ftroke, worfe than of death f
Mull 1 thus leave thee, Paradife ? Thus leave
Thee, native foil i thefe happy walks and fliades,
Fit haunt of Gods ; where I had hope to fpend
Quiet, though fad, the refpite of that day,
Which muft be mortal to us both ? O flowers,
That never will in other climate grow.
My early vifitation, andmylaft
At even; which 1 bred up with tender hand
From your fir ft opening buds, and gave you names j
Who now fliall rear you to the fun, or rank
Your tribes, and water from the ambrofial fount ?
This is the real language of nature and of female
palfion.
In the management of this fort of perfonification two
rules are to be obferved. Firft, never attempt it, un-
lefs prompted by ftrong paffion, and never continue it,
when the paffion begins to fubfide. The fecond rule
is, never perfonify an objedt, which has not feme digni¬
ty in itfelf, and which is incapable of making a proper
figure in the elevation, to which we raife it. To ad¬
drefs the body of a deceafed friend is natural ; but to
addrefs the clothes, which he wore, intiodutes low and
degrading ideas. So likewife addreffing the feveral