ty
days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years;
and ye shall know my breach of promise."--_Numbers_, xiv, 34.

"Some lead a life unblamable and just,
Their own dear virtue their unshaken trust;
They never sin--or if (as all offend)
Some trivial slips their daily walk attend,
The poor are near at hand, the charge is small,
A slight gratuity atones for all."--_Cowper_.

FIGURE XV.--APOPHASIS, OR PARALIPSIS.

I say nothing of the notorious profligacy of his character; nothing of the
reckless extravagance with which he has wasted an ample fortune; nothing of
the disgusting intemperance which has sometimes caused him to reel in our
streets;--but I aver that he has not been faithful to our interests,--has
not exhibited either probity or ability in the important office which he
holds.

FIGURE XVI.--ONOMATOPOEIA.

[Fist][The following lines, from Swift's Poems, satirically mimick the
imitative music of a violin.]

"Now slowly move your fiddle-stick;
Now, tantan, tantantivi, quick;
Now trembling, shivering, quivering, quaking,
Set hoping hearts of Lovers aching."

"Now sweep, sweep the deep.
See Celia, Celia dies,
While true Lovers' eyes
Weeping sleep, Sleeping weep,
Weeping sleep, Bo-peep, bo-peep."

CHAPTER IV.--VERSIFICATION.

Versification is the forming of that species of literary composition which
is called _verse_; that is, _poetry_, or _poetic numbers_.

SECTION I.--OF VERSE.

Verse, in opposition to prose, is language arranged into metrical lines of
some determinate length and rhythm--language so ordered as to produce
harmony, by a due succession of poetic feet, or of syllables differing in
quantity or stress.

DEFINITIONS AND PRINCIPLES.

The _rhythm_ of verse is its relation of quantities; the modulation of its
numbers; or, the kind of metre, measure, or movement, of which it consists,
or by which it is particularly distinguished.

The _quantity_ of a syllable, as commonly explained, is the relative
portion of time occupied in uttering it. In poetry, every syllable is
considered to be either long or short. A long syllable is usually reckoned
to be equal to two short ones.

In the construction of English verse, long quantity coincides always with
the primary accent, generally also with the secondary, as well as with
emphasis; and short quantity, as reckoned by the poets, is found only in
unaccente