She never told her love,

But let concealment, like a worm i' th' bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: fhe pin'd in thought;
And with a green and yellow melancholy,

She fat like Patience on a monument,

Smiling at Grief.

Twelfth-Night, at 2. fc. 6.

York. Then, as I faid, the Duke, great Bolingbroke,

Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed,

Which his afpiring rider feem'd to know,
With flow but stately pace, kept on his course:
While all tongues cry'd, God fave thee, Boling-
broke.

Duchefs. Alas! poor Richard, where rides he

the while?

York. As in a theatre, the eyes of men,

After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on him that enters next,
Thinking his prattle to be tedious:

Even fo, or with much more contempt, mens eyes Did fcowl on Richard; no man cry'd, God fave him!

No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home;
But duft was thrown upon his facred head;
Which with fuch gentle forrow he shook off,
His face ftill combating with tears and smiles,

The

The badges of his grief and patience;

That had not God, for fome ftrong purpose, fteel'd

The hearts of men, they must perforce have

melted;

And barbarism itself have pitied him.

Richard II. at 5. Sc. 3.

Northumberland. How doth my fon and brother?

Thou trembleft, and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter
than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
Even fuch a man, fo faint, fo fpiritless,
So dull, fo dead in look, fo wo-be-gone, }
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him, half his Troy was
burn'd;

But Priam found the fire, ere he his tongue:
And I my Percy's death, ere thou report'st it.
Second Part Henry IV. at 1. fc. 3.

Why, then I do but dream on fovʼreignty,
Like one that stands upon a promontory,
And fpies a far-off fhore where he would tread,
Wishing his foot were equal with his eye,
And chides the fea that funders him from thence,
Saying, he'll lave it dry to have his way:

So do I wish, the crown being so far off,
And so I chide the means that keep me from it,

And

And fo (I fay) I'll cut the caufes off,

Flatt'ring my mind with things impoffible.

Third Part Henry VI. act 3. fc. 31

Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking fhadow, a poor player,
That ftruts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more.

O thou Goddess,

Macbeth, at 5. fc. 56

Thou divine Nature! how thyself thou blazon'st
In these two princely boys! they are as gentle
As zephyrs blowing below the violet,

Not wagging his fweet head; and yet as rough,
(Their royal blood inchaf 'd) as the rud'ft wind,
That by the top doth take the mountain-pine,
And make him stoop to th' vale.

Cymbeline, act 4. Sc. 4.

The fight obtained of the city of Jerufalem by the Christian army, compared to that of land discovered after a long voyage, Taffo's Gierufalem, canto 3. ft. 4. The fury of Rinaldo fubfiding when not oppofed, to that of wind or water when it has a free paffage, canto 20. ft. 58.

As

As words convey but a faint and obfcure notion of great numbers, a poet, to give a high notion of the object he describes with regard to number, does well to compare it to what is familiar and commonly known.

Thus Homer * compares the Grecian army in point of number to a fwarm of bees. In another paffage the compares it to that profufion of leaves and flowers which appear in the fpring, or of infects in a fummer's evening. And Milton,

As when the potent rod

Of Amram's fon in Egypt's evil day
Wav'd round the coaft, up call'd a pitchy cloud
Of locufts, warping on the eastern wind,
That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung
Like night, and darken'd all the land of Nile:
So numberless were those bad angels feen,
Hovering on wing under the cope of hell,
'Twixt upper, nether, and furrounding fires.
Paradife Loft, book 1,

Such comparisons have, by fome writers, been condemned for the lowness of

Book 2. 1. III.

See Vida Poetic. lib. 2. 1. 282.

+ Book 2. 1. 551.

the

the images introduced: but furely without reason; for, with regard to numbers, they put the principal subject in a strong light.

The foregoing comparisons operate by resemblance; others have the fame effect by contrast:

York. I am the last of Noble Edward's fons, Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first: In war, was never lion rag'd more fierce; In peace, was never gentle lamb more mild; Than was that young and princely gentleman, His face thou haft; for even fo look'd he, Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours. But when he frown'd, it was against the French, And not against his friends. His noble hand Did win what he did spend; and spent not that Which his triumphant father's hand had won. His hands were guilty of no kindred's blood, But bloody with the enemies of his kin. Oh, Richard! York is too far gone with grief, Or else he never would compare between.

Richard II. a 2. fc. 3•

Milton has a peculiar talent in embellishing the principal subject by affociating it with others that are agreeable, which is

the