Apostrophe device.

Fundamental Device.—APOSTROPHE.

Apostrophe is the addressing of the dead or inani¬mate as if they were living, and the absent as if present. It gives an impassioned tone to a descrip¬tion, and differs from personification in that it takes the form of a direct address.

A.	MODEL.

Situated, as thou art, in the very heart of stirring and living commerce — amid the fret and fever of specula¬tion — with the Bank, and the 'Change, and the India House about thee, in the heyday of present prosperity, with their important faces, as it were, insulting thee, their poor neighbor out of business—to the idle and merely contemplative—to such as me, old house ! there is a charm in thy quiet :— a cessation — a coolness from business — an indolence almost cloistral — which is delightful !

-CHARLES LAMB, Essays qf Elia.

SUGGESTIONS.- What description-motive is used in this model ? What is the fundamental quality of the picture ? What words make this description an apostrophe ?

B.	EXAMPLE FOR ANALYSIS.

Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the dayspring of thy fancies, with hope like a fiery column before thee—the dark pillar not yet turned— Samuel Taylor Coleridge — logician, metaphysician, bard !— How have I seen the casual passer through the clois¬ters stand still, entranced with admiration (while he weighed the disproportion between the speech and the garb of the young Mirandula), to hear thee unfold, in thy deep and sweet intonations, the mysteries of Jam¬blichus, or Plotinus (for even in those days thou waxedst not pale at such philosophic draughts), or reciting Homer in his Greek or Pindar — while the walls of the old Gray Friars re-echoed to the accents of the inspired charity boy !

-	CHARLES LAMB, Essays of Elia. SUGGESTIONS.- What description-motive is here used? What is the fundamental quality of the picture ? Minor devices used. metaphor, comparison. allusion