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at Monmouth, but it is ont of my prains what is the name of the other river; but it is all one, 'tis as like as my fingers to my fingers, and there is salmons in both. If you mark Alexander's life well, Harry of Monmouth's life is come after it indifferent well; for there is figures in all things. Alexander, God knows, and you now, in his rages, aud his furies, and his wraths, and his cholers, and his moods, and his displeasures, and his indignations, and also being a little intoxicates in his prains, did, in his ales, and his angers, look you, kill his pest friend Clytus.

Gower. Our king is not like him in that; he never kill'd any of his friends.

Fluellen. It is not well done, mark you now, to take the tales out of my mouth, ere it is made and finished. I speak but in figures, and comparisons of it: as Alexander killed his friend Clytus, being in his ales and his cups; so also Harry of Monmouth, being in his right wits and his good judgments, turn'd away the fat knight with the great belly doublet; he was full of jests, and gypes,' and knaveries, and mocks; I have forgot his name. Gower. Sir John Falstaff.

Fluellen. That is he: I tell you, there is good men porn at Monmouth.-Shakspeare's Henry V.

> III. The object from which a comparison is drawn, should never be one of which but few people can form clear and distinct ideas. Comparisons are introduced into discourse, for the sake of throwing light on the subject. We must, therefore, be upon our guard, not to employ, as the ground of our simile, any object which is either too obscure or unknown. That which is used for the purpose of illustrating some other object, ought certainly to be more obvious and plain than the object intended to be illustrated. Comparisons, therefore, founded on philosophical discoveries, or on any thing with which persons of a certain profession only are acquainted, do not produce their proper effect

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in any piece intended for the public at large. They should be taken from those illustrious, noted objects, which the majority of readers either have seen, or can strongly conceive.

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IV. A writer of delicacy will avoid drawing his comparisons from any image that is nauseous, ugly, or remarkably disagreeable; for, however striking the resemblance may be, the reader will be more strongly affected with sensations of disgust, than with those of pleasure.

V. The strongest objection which can be urged against a comparison, is, that it consists in words only, not in sense. Such false coin is suitable in the burlesque; but it is far beneath the dignity of the epic, or of any serious composition. It is disputed among critics, whether the following simile be of this description :

The noble sister of Poplicola,

The moon of Rome; chaste as the icicle

That's curdled by the frost from purest snow,
And hangs on Dian's temple.

Shakspeare

"There is," says Lord Kames, "evidently no resemblance between an icicle and a woman, chaste or unchase: but chastity is cold in a metaphorical sense; and this verbal resemblance, in the hurry and glow of composition, has been thought 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."*

• Kames's Elements of Criticism, chap. xix.

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« This,” says Mr. Goldsmith, “ is no more than illustrating a quality of the mind, by comparing it with a sensible object. If there is no impropriety in saying such a man is true as steel, firm as a rock, inflexible as an oak, unsteady as the ocean, or in describing a disposition cold as ice, or fickle as the wind; and these expressions are justified by practice; we shall hazard an assertion, that the comparison of a chaste woman to an icicle is proper and picturesque, as it obtains only in the circumstances of cold and purity; but that the addition of its being curdled from the purest snow and hanging on the temple of Diana, the patroness of virginity, heightens the whole into a most beautiful simile.*

CHAP. XVII.

OF METAPHOR.

ONE of the most pleasing exercises of the imagina. tion, is that in which she is employed in comparing distinct ideas, and discovering their various resemblances. There is no simple perception of the mind that is not capable of an infinite number of considerations in reference to other objects; and it is in the novelty and variety of those unexpected connexions, that the richness of a writer's genius is chiefly displayed. A vigorous and lively fancy does not tamely confine itself to

• Goldsmith's Essay, vol. ii. Essay xvii,

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the idea which lies before it, but looks beyond the inmediate objects of its contemplation, and observes how it stands in conformity with numberless others. It is the prerogative of the human mind thus to bring its images together, and compare the several circumstances of similitude which attend them. By these means eloquence exercises a kind of magic power; she can raise innumerable beauties from the most barren subjects, and give the grace of novelty to the most common. The imagination is thus kept awake by the most agreeable motion, and entertained with a thousand different views both of art and nature, which still terminate at the principal object. For this reason, the metaphor is generally preferred to the simile, as a more pleasing mode of illustration. In the former, the action of the mind is less languid, as it is employed at the very same instant in comparing the resemblance with the idea which it attends: whereas in the latter, its operations are more slow, as it must first contemplate the principal object, and afterwards its corresponding image.

A metaphor differs from a simile in form only, not in substance; the comparison being the foundation of both. In a simile, the two subjects are kept distinct in the expression, as well as in the thought; in a metaphor they are kept distinct in the thought, but not in the expression. A hero resembles a lion, and upon that resemblance many similes have been founded by Homer and other poets. But let us call in the aid of the imagination, and figure the hero to be a lion instead of only resembling one; by that variation the simile is converted into a metaphor, which is carried on by describing all the qualities of the lion which resembles those of the hero.

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The poet, by figuring his hero to be a lion, proceeds to describe the lion in appearance; but in reality he is all the while describing the hero; and his description becomes peculiarly beautiful, by expressing the virtues and qualities of the hero in terms which properly belong not to him but to the lion. When I say of some great minister," that he upholds the state like a pillar which supports the weight of a whole edifice," I evidently frame a comparison; but when I say of the same minister," that he is a pillar of the state," this is not a comparison but a metaphor. The comparison between the minister and a pillar is carried on in the mind; but is made without any of the words which denote comparison. The comparison is only insinuated, not expressed; the one object is supposed to be so like the other, that, without formally drawing the comparison, the name of the one may be substituted for that of the other.

A metaphor always implies comparison, and is, in that respect, a figure of thought; yet, as the words in which it is conveyed are not taken literally, but changed from their proper to a figurative sense, the metaphor is commonly ranked among tropes, or figures of words. But, provided the nature of it be well understood, it is of little importance whether we denominate it a trope or a figure.

"The description of natural objects," says Mr. Roscoe," awakes in the poet's mind corresponding emotions; as his heart warms, his fancy expands, and he labours to convey a more distinct or a more elevated idea of the impressions of his own imagination. Hence the origin of figures, or figurative language; in the use

of

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