Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/56

50 doubtless we also might that of our modern poetry and rhetoric, were the several parts branched out in the like manner.

Nothing is more evident than that divers persons, no other way remarkable, have each a strong disposition to the formation of some particular trope or figure. Aristotle saith, that "the hyperbole is an "ornament fit for young men of quality;" accordingly we find in those gentlemen a wonderful propensity toward it, which is marvellously improved by travelling, Soldiers also and seamen are very happy in the same figure. The periphrasis, or circumlocution, is the peculiar talent of country farmers; the proverb and apologue, of old men at clubs; the ellipsis, or speech by half-words, of ministers and politicians; the aposiopesis of courtiers; the litotes, or diminution, of ladies, whisperers, and backbiters; and the anadiplosis of common criers and hawkers, who by redoubling the same words persuade people to buy their oysters, green hastings, or new ballads. Epithets may be found in great plenty at Billingsgate; sarcasm and irony learned upon the water; and the epiphonema, or exclamation, frequently from the bear-garden, and as frequently from the hear him of the house of commons.

Now each man applying his vhole time and genius upon his particular figure, would doubtless attain to perfection; and when each became incorporated and sworn into the society (as hath been proposed) a poet or orator would have no more to do, but to send to the particular traders in each kind; to the metaphorist, for his allegories; to the simile-maker, for his comparisons; to the ironist, for his sarcasms; to the apothegmatist, for his sentences, &c. whereby a dication