and we instantly cry out, we burn. In fuch a fituation of mind, terms appropriated to the objects we are describing, would not fuggeft our ideas of them to another person in fufficient strength. Without looking abroad, it is curious to obferve in what different manners we feel ourselves disposed to say things according to the humour we are in; in what plain terms we speak when our minds are languid, and how metaphorically when we have a flow of spirits.

Metaphors muft, for this reason, be abfurd, when a man's ideas and sensations are not peculiarly vivid. For a man to use figures then, would be to endeavour to convey ftronger (which is, in fact, other) ideas to the minds of the persons he is speaking to, than he conceives himself. Of this we have fome diverting examples in the Treatise on the Bathos. It will, likewise, be found exemplified in the paffage which was quoted to show a like improper use of comparisons.

The most important rule respecting the choice of metaphors, where they are proper, is, that different metaphors fhould not be confounded together in the fame sentence: because, in this case, the sense, if it be realized in the imagination, will appear to imply an abfurdity. And, fince every new application of a word that hath the effect of a metaphor, doth raise an idea of the object to which it was primarily affixed, for the fame reason that every scene presented to the mind of the reader fhould be, at leaft, poffible, and confiftent, these pieces of scenery, though ever fo tranfient, should be fo too; and when there is a manifeft inconfiftency in fuch little pictures, a reader of taste is justly offended. Out of the numberless examples I might produce of this fault in writers, I shall select the following from Shakespeare, in which the marriage of King John with Conftance is referred to.

For

For by this knot thou shalt fo furely tie

Thy now unfured affurance to the crown,

That yon green boy fhall have no fun to ripe
The bloom that promises a mighty fruit.

KING JOHN..

Here it may juftly be asked, how can the tying a knot prevent the fun's ripening fruit? The King's marriage with Conftance is certainly very properly expreffed by tying a knot; and, as that event would cut off the reasonable hopes that Arthur might otherwife entertain of fucceeding to the throne, this is likewise beautifully described by faying he would then have no fun to ripen the bloom which promised a mighty fruit.. But though these metaphors, when viewed afunder, appear proper and beautiful, when they are joined, the result is a manifest absurdity..

Not only fhould writers avoid the near union of different terms which are highly metaphorical, they should also favour the ima-gery which metaphors raise in the mind, by intermixing no plain and natural expreffions with them. Thus, in the paffage quoted above, the boy should have been kept out of fight, and the tree or plant have been fubftituted in its place for the fun to act upon. In this view, likewise, the author of the Bathos juftly cenfures the following lines of Blackmore:

A waving fea of heads around them spread,.
And still fresh ftreams the gazing deluge fed..

For when a croud of people are, by the power of figure, metamorphofed into a deluge, it is deftroying the agreeable illufion too foon, and raises an inconfiftency in our ideas, to give eyes to it; though the objects that compofed this metaphorical deluge really had eyes.

And yet, to show how delicate this affair is, and what extreme attention it requires wholly to avoid this fault, we may observe, that this same hypercritical writer, even while he is upon ject, falls into it himself.

the fub

"Thus an ingenious artist, painting the spring, talks of a "fnow of bloffoms, and thereby raises an unexpected picture of "winter.". But how can a picture be raised by a perfon's talking of any thing while he is painting?

Indeed, the frequency of inaccuracies of this kind, where the figure is not strong, and the little notice that is, notwithstanding, taken of them by the generality of readers, fhow that they are of very little confequence. The cafe is, that the images which fuch metaphors prefent, are feen but for a moment, and then very obscurely; so that, though there may be fome little inconfistency in them, in fuch a tranfient view they easily pass unnoticed. It is only when we exprefsly attend to these faint metaphors, and by a direct effort of the mind draw out the scene at large, and thereby, as we may fay, raise and heighten all the colours of it, that the impropriety is obferved. But how few do this? and, are critics fo minutely employed worthy the notice of

a writer?

When a figure is become abfolutely evanefcent, and long use hath made the metaphorical term more familiar than the proper name of the thing, or circumftance denoted by it, it is pains employed to very little purpose to trace out the long-forgotten allufion, in order to fhow its latent inconfiftency with any thing it is connected with. Who can expect that such phrases as these, fallen into an error, to spend time upon a thing, to be incenfed at a perfon, &c. should be used with any regard to the latent figure they

contain.

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contain. It is impoffible however for any perfon to conftruct many sentences without expofing himself to the fame cenfure; terms which are ultimately figurative abound fo much in all languages. All our intellectual ideas are expreffed in terms borrowed from fenfible things; but who, in using them, attends to the fenfible images they may fuggeft? Or, whoever attends to ideas of local pofition, which every prepofition implies?

I may add, that the perfons who are the most liable to these inaccuracies, are those who are the most perfectly acquainted with a language, and to whom the terms and idioms of it are the most familiar. For, by frequent ufe, the latent figurative sense of a word is wholly overlooked, and fuch a figurative expreffion fuggefts nothing but the idea of the object intended to be illustrated by it. However, nothing in criticism requires lefs judgment and ability than to discover these little inaccuracies, if a man will look fo low. Such minute critics are finely expofed in a paper of the Tatler..

So remote are the two extremes in the vividnefs of metaphors, that the evanefcent require no attention at all to their connection with other ideas; whereas the boldeft and ftrongest require fo much, that not only do they introduce confufion when they are intermixed, but they even give pain and disgust when they fucceed. one another at very short intervals. When metaphors raise very vivid and diftinct ideas of foreign fcenes, to change them very faft, is like hurrying us from one part of the creation to another, with a rapidity that gives us pain.

An eafy and good teft, in most cafes, of the propriety of strong metaphors, is to imagine them reduced to painting, and confider how the images would look in that mode of expreffion. A person of a

lively imagination naturally doth this, and confequently to him improprieties in metaphors appear much more disgusting than they do to other perfons, to whom they suggest the idea of the fcene, from which they were borrowed, very faintly. To a perfon of this lively turn of mind, who easily recurs to the original fcenes from which metaphors are drawn, the. following ftring of metaphors, in an exquifite poem of Pope's (though, singly taken, they be uncommonly happy) as they fucceed one another without any interval, may poffibly have a disagreeable effect:

What is this abforbs me quite,
Steals my fenfes, fouts my fight?
Drinks my fpirits, draws my breath ?
Tell me, my foul, can this be death?

Though there should be no inconsistency in imagining the fame thing to have the different properties of abforbing, ftealing, shutting, drinking, and drawing; yet the ideas of these several actions can hardly be brought fo near one another without confufion, if the images be a little raised by an attention to them.

As metaphors are contracted fimiles, they muft neceffarily have many excellencies and defects in common with them. Of this kind. are the following. The most striking metaphors, or those which give the most fenfible pleasure, are those in which there is perceived at first the greatest difference between the two ideas that are fignified by the fame word, and afterwards the greatest refemblance. From this fource, chiefly, is derived the charm of the following metaphors, a gay thought, a bright expreffion, the wings of the wind, the impervious ocean: though the two firft have the additional advantage of being allufions to objects of fight, which are always peculiarly diftinct and pleafing; and the laft gives us, likewife, the idea of