raising it by resemblance and if the disparity be very great, the sinile degenerates into burlesque; nothing being more ridiculous than to force an object out of its proper rank in nature, by equalling it with one greatly superior or greatly inferior. This will be evident from the following comparisons:

Fervet opus, redolentque thymo fragrantia mella.
Ac veluti lentis Cyclopes fulmina massis
Cum properant. alii taurinis follibus auras
Accipiunt, redduntque: alii stridentia tingunt
Era lacu; gemit impositis incudibus Etna;
Illi inter sese magna vi brachia tollunt

In numerum; versantque tenaci forcipe ferrum.
Non aliter (si parva licet componere magnis)
Cecropias innatus apes amor urget habendi,
Munere quamque suo. Grandævis oppida curæ,
Et munire favos, et Dædaia fingere tecta.
At fessæ multa referunt se nocte minores,
Crura thymo plena: pascuntur et arbuta passim,
Et glaucas salices, casiamque crocumque rubentem,
Et pinguem tiliam, et ferrugineos hyacinthos,
Omnibus una quies operum, labor omnibus unus.

Georgic, iv. 169.

A writer of delicacy will avoid drawing his comparisons from any image that is nauseous, ugly, or remarkably disagreeable; for however strong the resemblance may be, more will be lost than gained by such comparison. Therefore I cannot help condemning, though with some reluctance, the following simile, or rather metaphor:

O thou fond many! with what loud applause
Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke,
Before he was what thou wouldst have him be?
And now being trimm'd up in thine own desires,
Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him,
That thou provok'st thyself to cast him up:
And so, thou common dog, did'st thou disgorge
Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard,

And now thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up,
And howl'st to find it.

Second Part Henry IV. Act I. Sc. 6.

508. The strongest objection that can lie against a comparison is, that it consists in words only, not in sense. Such false coin, or bastard wit, does extremely well in burlesque; but it is far below the dignity of the epic, or of any serious composition:

The noble sister of Poplicola,

The moon of Rome; chaste as the icicle
That's curled by the frost from purest snow,
And hangs on Dian's temple.

Coriolanus, Act V. Sc. 3.

There is evidently no resemblance between an icicle and a wo man, chaste or unchaste; but chastity is cold in a metaphorical sense, and an icicle is cold in a proper sense: and this verbal resemblance, in the hurry and glow of composing, has been thought

507. An image too elevated for the principal subject.-Disagreeablo imagia

a sufficient foundation for the simile. Such phantom similes are mere witticisms, which ought to have no quarter, except where purposely introduced to provoke laughter. Lucian, in his dissertation upon history, talking of a certain author, makes the following comparison, which is verbal merely:

This author's descriptions are so cold that they surpass the Caspian snow, and all the ice of the north.

Virgil has not escaped this puerility:

Gallo, cujus amor tantum mihi crescit in horas,
Quantum vere novo viridis se subjicit alnus.

Nor Tasso, in his Aminta:

Picciola e' l'ape, e fa col picciol morso
Pur gravi, e pur moleste le ferite;
Ma, qual cosa é più picciola d' amore,
Se in ogni breve spatio entra, e s' asconde
In ogni breve spatio? hor, sotto a l'ombra

De le palpebre, hor trá minuti rivi

D'un biondo crine, hor dentro le pozzette

Che forma un dolce riso in bella guancia;

E pur fa tanto grandi, e si mortali,

E cosi immedicabili le piaghe.

Ibid. 41.

Bucol. x. 87.

Act II. Sc. 1.

Nor Boileau, the chastest of all writers, and that even in his Art of

Poetry:

Ainsi tel autrefois, qu'on vit avec Faret
Charbonner de ses vers les murs d'un cabaret,
S'en va mal à propos d'une voix insolente,

Chanter du peuple Hébreu la fuite triomphante,

Et poursuivant Moïse au travers des déserts,

Court avec Pharaon se noyer dans les mers.-Chant. I. 1. 21.

Mais allons voir le Vrai, jusqu'en sa source même.

Un dévot aux yeux creux, et d'abstinence blême,

S'il n'a point le cœur juste, est affreux devant Dieu,
L'Evangile au Chrétien ne dit, en aucun lieu,
Sois dévot: elle dit, Sois doux, simple, équitable:
Car d'un devot souvent au Chrétien véritable
La distance est deux fois plus longue, à mon avis,
Que du Pôle Antarctique au Détroit de Davis.

But for their spirits and souls
This word rebellion had froze them up
As fish are in a pond.

Boileau, Satire xi.

Second Part Henry IV. Act I. Sc. 8.

Queen. The pretty vaulting sea refused to drown me;
Knowing, that thou wouldst have me drown'd on shore;
With tears as salt as sea, through thy unkindness.

Second Part Henry IV. Act III. Sc. 6.

Here there is no manner of resemblance but in the word drown; for there is no real resemblance between being drowned at sea, and dying of grief at land. But perhaps this sort of tinsel wit may

have a propriety in it, when used to express an affected, not a real passion, which was the Queen's case.

Pope has several similes of the same stamp. I shall transcribe one or two from the Essay on Man, the greatest and most instructive of all his performances:

And hence one master passion in the breast,
Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest.

Epist. ii. 1. 181.

And again, talking of this same ruling or master passion:

Nature its mother, Habit is its nurse;
Wit, spirit, faculties, but make it worse;
Reason itself but gives it edge and power;

As heaven's bless'd beam turns vinegar more sour.-Ibid. 1. 45.

Lord Bolingbroke, speaking of historians :

Where their sincerity as to fact is doubtful, we strike out truth by the confrontation of different accounts; as we strike out sparks of fire by the collision of flints and steel.

Let us vary the phrase a very little, and there will not remain a shadow of resemblance. Thus:

We discover truth by the confrontation of different accounts; as we strike out sparks of fire by the collision of flints and steel.

Racine makes Orestes say to Hermoine :

Que les Scythes sont moins cruel qu' Hermoine.

Similes of this kind put one in mind of a ludicrous French song:

Again:

Je croyois Janneton

Aussi douce que belle:

Je croyois Janneton

Plus douce qu'un mouton;

Hélas! Hélas!

Elle est cent fois, mille fois, plus cruelle

Que n'est le tigre aux bois.

Hélas! l'amour m'a pris,

Comme le chat fait la souris.

Where the subject is burlesque or ludicrous, such similes are far from being improper. Horace says pleasantly,

And Shakspeare,

Quanquam tu levior cortice.-L. iii. ode 9.

In breaking oaths he's stronger than Hercules.

species, the end and Take the following

509. And this leads me to observe, that besides the foregoing comparisons, which are all serious, there is a purpose of which is to excite gayety or mirth. examples:

509. Comparison in words only. Examploa

Falstaff, speaking to his page:

I do here walk before thee like a sow that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one.-Second Part Henry VI. Act I. Sc. 4.

I think he is not a pick-purse, nor a horse-stealer; but for his verity in love, I do think him as concave as a covered goblet, or a worm-eaten nut.

As You Like It, Act III. Sc. 10.

This sword a dagger had his page,

That was but little for his age;
And therefore waited on him so,

As dwarfs upon knights-errant do.-Hudibras, canto i.

Description of Hubibras's horse :

He was well stay'd, and in his gait
Preserved a grave majestic state.
At spur or switch no more he skipt,
Or mended pace than Spaniard whipt:
And yet so fiery, he would bound
As if he grieved to touch the ground:
That Caesar's horse, who, as fame goes,
Had corns upon his feet and toes,
Was not by half so tender hooft,
Nor trod upon the ground so soft.

And as that beast would kneel and stoop,

(Some write) to take his rider up;

So Hudibras his ('tis well known)

Would often do to set him down.-Canto i.

The sun had long since in the lap

Of Thetis taken out his nap;

And, like a lobster boil'd, the morn

From black to red began to turn.-Part II. canto ii.

Books, like men their authors, have but one way of coming into the world, but there are ten thousand to go out of it, and return no more.

Tale of a Tub.

And in this the world may perceive the difference between the integrity of a generous author, and that of a common friend. The latter is observed to adhere close in prosperity; but, on the decline of fortune, to drop suddenly off: whereas the generous author, just on the contrary, finds his hero on the dunghill, from thence by gradual steps raises him to a throne, and then immediately withdraws, expecting not so much as thanks for his pains.

Tale of a Tub.

The most accomplished way of using books at present is, to serve them as some do lords, learn their titles, and then brag of their acquaintance.

Clubs, diamonds, hearts, in wild disorder seen,
With throngs promiscuous strow the level green.
Thus when dispersed a routed army runs,

Of Asia's troops, and Afric's sable sons,
With like confusion, different nations fly.
Of various habit, and of various dye,

The pierced battalions disunited, fall

Tule of a Tub.

In heaps on heaps; one fate o'erwhelms them all.

Rape of the Lock, canto iii.

He does not consider that sincerity in love is as much out of fashion as sweet anuff; nobody takes it now.-Careless Husband.

509. Mirthful comparisons.

CHAPTER XX.

FIGURES.

THE endless variety of expressions brought under the head of tropes and figures by ancient critics and grammarians, makes it evident that they had no precise criterion for distinguishing tropes and figures from plain language. It was accordingly my opinion that little could be made of them in the way of rational criticism; till discovering, by a sort of accident, that many of them depend on principles formerly explained, I gladly embrace the opportunity to show the influence of these principles where it would be the least expected.

SECTION I.

Personification.

510. THE bestowing sensibility and voluntary motion upon things inanimate, is so bold a figure as to require, one should imagine, very peculiar circumstances for operating the delusion; and yet, in the language of poetry, we find variety of expressions, which, though commonly reduced to that figure, are used without ceremony, or any sort of preparation; as, for example, thirsty ground, hungry church-yard, furious dart, angry ocean. These epithets, in their proper meaning, are attributes of sensible beings: what is their meaning when applied to things inanimate? do they make us conceive the ground, the church-yard, the dart, the ocean, to be endued with animal functions? This is a curious inquiry; and whether so or not, it cannot be declined in handling the present subject.

The mind, agitated by certain passions, is prone to bestow sensibility upon things inanimate. This is an additional instance of the influence of passion upon our opinions and belief. (Chapter ii. part v.) I give examples. Antony, mourning over the body of Cæsar murdered in the senate-house, vents his passion in the following words: Antony. O pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, That I ain meek and gentle with these butchers.

Thou art the ruins of the noblest man

That ever lived in the tide of time.-Julius Cæsar, Act III. Sc. 4.

Here Antony must have been impressed with a notion that the body of Caesar was listening to him, without which the speech would be foolish and absurd. Nor will it appear strange, considering what is said in the chapter above cited, that passion should have such power