CHAPTER X.

IN WHAT MANNER AN ORATION IS GRACED BY THE THINGS AFORESAID.

It is graced by _animation_, when the actions of living creatures are attributed to things without life; as when the _sword_ is said to _devour_.

Such _metaphors_ as these come into a man’s mind by the observation of things that have similitude and proportion one to another. And the more unlike and unproportionable the things be otherwise, the more _grace_ hath the _metaphor_.

A _metaphor_ without _animation_, adds _grace_ then, when the hearer finds he learns somewhat by such use of the word.

Also _paradoxes_ are _graceful_, so men inwardly do believe them. For they have in them somewhat like to those jests that are grounded upon the similitude of words, which have usually one sense, and in the present another; and somewhat like to those jests which are grounded upon the deceiving of a man’s expectation.

And _paragrams_, that is, allusions of words, are graceful, if they be well placed, and in periods not too long, and with _antithesis_. For by these means the ambiguity is taken away.

And the more of these, namely, _metaphor_, _animation_, _antithesis_, _equality of members_, a period hath, the more graceful it is.

_Similitudes_ grace an oration, when they contain also a _metaphor_.

And _proverbs_ are graceful, because they are _metaphors_, or translations of words from one species to another.

And _hyperboles_, because they also are _metaphors_. But they are youthful, and bewray vehemence; and are used with most grace by them that be angry; and for that cause are not comely in old men.

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