II.  PLEONASM is the introduction of superfluous words; as, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it.”—­Gen., ii, 17.  This figure is allowable only, when, in animated discourse, it abruptly introduces an emphatic word, or repeats an idea to impress it more strongly; as, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”—­Bible.  “All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth.”—­Id. “There shall not be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.”—­Id. “I know thee who thou art.”—­Id. A Pleonasm, as perhaps in these instances, is sometimes impressive and elegant; but an unemphatic repetition of the same idea, is one of the worst faults of bad writing.

OBS.—­Strong passion is not always satisfied with saying a thing once, and in the fewest words possible; nor is it natural that it should be.  Hence repetitions indicative of intense feeling may constitute a beauty of the highest kind, when, if the feeling were wanting, or supposed to be so, they would be reckoned intolerable tautologies.  The following is an example, which the reader may appreciate the better, if he remembers the context:  “At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down; at her feet he bowed, he fell; where he bowed, there he fell down dead.”—­Judges, v, 27.

III.  SYLLEPSIS is agreement formed according to the figurative sense of a word, or the mental conception of the thing spoken of, and not according to the literal or common use of the term; it is therefore in general connected with some figure of rhetoric:  as “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us, and we beheld his glory.”—­John, i, 14.  “Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them.”—­Acts, viii, 5.  “The city of London have expressed their sentiments with freedom and firmness.”—­Junius, p. 159.  “And I said [to backsliding Israel,] after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me; but she returned not:  and her treacherous sister Judah saw it.”—­Jer., iii, 7.  “And he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder.”—­Mark, iii, 17.

   “While Evening draws her crimson curtains round.”—­Thomson, p. 63.

    “The Thunder raises his tremendous voice.”—­Id., p. 113.

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.—­To the parser, some explanation of that agreement which is controlled by tropes, is often absolutely necessary; yet, of our modern grammarians, none appear to have noticed it; and, of the oldest writers, few, if any, have given it the rank which it deserves among the figures of syntax.  The term Syllepsis literally signifies conception, comprehension, or taking-together.