Page:On the Sublime 1890.djvu/94

 

arity. In speaking, then, of Philip as "taking doses of trouble," Theopompus has laid hold on a phrase which describes with peculiar vividness one who for the sake of advantage endured what was base and sordid with patience and cheerfulness.2 The same may be observed of two passages in Herodotus: "Cleomenes having lost his wits, cut his own flesh into pieces with a short sword, until by gradually mincing his whole body he destroyed himself";^[1] and "Pythes continued fighting on his ship until he was entirely hacked to pieces.^[2] Such terms come home at once to the vulgar reader, but their own vulgarity is redeemed by their expressiveness.

 

XXXII

Concerning the number of metaphors to be employed together Caecilius seems to give his vote with those critics who make a law that not more than two, or at the utmost three, should be combined in the same place. The use, however, must be determined by the occasion. Those outbursts of passion which drive onwards like a winter torrent draw with them as an indispensable accessory whole masses of metaphor. It is thus in that passage of Demosthenes (who here also is our safest guide):^[3]2 "Those vile fawning wretches, each one of whom has lopped from

1. vi. 75.
2. vii. 181
3. See Note.