Of mortals, that fall back to gaze on him, Analysis. Here, the angel is represented as, at one moment, be striding the clouds, and sailing upon the air; and upon the bosom of the air too; which forms such a confused picture, that it is impossible for any imagination to comprehend it. Example 3. More correct writers than Shakspeare sometimes fall into this error of mixing metaphors. I bridle in my struggling muse with pain, Analysis. The muse, figured as a horse, may be bridled; but when we speak of launching, we make it a ship; and by no force of imagination, can it be supposed both a horse and a ship at one moment; bridled, to hinder it from launching. Were we to try this metaphor by Addison's own rule, namely, to suppose the figure painted, it would appear more grotesque than any of Hogarth's subjects. That the muse, from her connexion with the winged horse Pegasus, might sometimes require the bridle, is not perhaps very unnatural. But were she painted in an attitude in which the bridle prevented her from launching or jumping into the sea; or were a picture to exhibit a ship launched, not into the sea, but upon a sheet of paper, or into a song, the spectator would feel something of the disposition inspired by the monster of Horace, Spectatum admissi risum teneatis amici. But the muse is a goddess. Now to bridle a goddess is no very delicate idea. But why must she be bridled? because she longs to launch; an act which was never hindered by a bridle. And whither will she launch into a nobler strain. She is in the first line a goddess, or a horse, in the second, a boat or a javelin, (for both may be launched) and the care of the poet is to keep his horse, or his boat, or his spear, from singing. 270. Addison's rule is a good one for examining the propriety of metaphors, when we doubt whether or not they be of the mixed kind: namely, that we should try to form a picture upon them, and consider how the parts would agree, and what sort of figure the whole would present, when delineated with a pencil. By this means we should become sensible, whether inconsistent circumstances were mixed, and a monstrous image thereby produced, as in all those faulty instances which have been given; or whether the object was throughout presented in one natural and consistent point of view. 271. As metaphors ought never to be mixed; so in the sixth place, we should avoid crowding them together on the same object. Supposing each of the metaphors to be preserved distinct, yet, if they be heaped on one another, they * Addison. produce a confusion somewhat of the same kind with the mixed metaphor. Example 1. "There is a time, when factions, by the vehemence of their fermentation, stun, and disable one another.' Analysis. The noble author represents factions, first, as discordant fluids, the mixture of which produces violent fermentation; but he quickly relinquishes this view of them, and imputes to them operations and effects, consequent only on the supposition of their being solid bodies in motion. They maim and dismember one another by forcible collisions. Example 2. "Those whose minds are dull and heavy do not easily penetrate into the folds and intricacies of an affair, and therefore can only scum off what they find at the top."t Analysis. That the writer had a right to represent his affair, whatever it was, either as a bale of cloth, or a fluid, nobody can deny. But the laws of common sense and perspicuity demanded of him to keep it either the one or the other, because it could not be both at the same time. It was absurd, therefore, after he had penetrated the folds of it, an operation competent only on the supposition of its being some pliable body, to speak of scumming off what floated on the surface, which could not be performed unless it was a fluid. 272. The only other rule concerning metaphors, which we shall add, is, that they be not too far pursued. If the resemblance on which the figure is founded, be long dwelt upon, and carried into all its minute circumstances, we make an allegory instead of a metaphor; we tire the reader, who soon becomes weary of this play of fancy; and we render our discourse obscure. This is called straining a metaphor. Critick 1. Cowley deals in this to excess; and to this error is owing, in a great measure, that intricacy and harshness, in his figurative language, which we before remarked. (Art. 207.) 2. Lord Shaftesbury is sometimes guilty of pursuing his metaphors too far. Fond, to a high degree, of every decoration of style, when once he had hit upon a figure that pleased him, he was extremely loath to part with it. But his 3. Dr. Young also often trespasses in the same way. The merit, however, of this writer, in figurative language, is great, and deserves to be remarked. No writer, ancient or modern, had a stronger imagination than Dr. Young, or one more fertile in figures of every kind. His metaphors are often new, and often natural and beautiful. imagination was strong and rich, rather than delicate and correct. Hence, in his Night Thoughts, there prevail an obscurity, and a hardness in his style. The metaphors are frequently too bold, and frequently too far pursued; the reader is dazzled rather than enlightened; and kept constantly on the stretch to keep pace with the author. 4. Of all the English authors, none is so happy in his metaphors as Addison. His imagination was neither so rich nor so strong as Dr. Young's; but far more chaste and delicate. Perspicuity, natural grace, and ease, always distinguish his figures. They are neither harsh nor strained; they never appear to have been studied or sought after; but seem to rise of their own accord from the subject, and constantly embellesh it. Scholia. 1. Metaphors expressed by single words may, it seems, be introduced on every occasion, from the most care less effusions of conversation, to the highest and most passionate expression of tragedy; and on all these occasions they are, perhaps, the most beautiful and significant language that can be employed. There is no doubt of the justness of this observation with regard to any species of speaking or writing, except that which denotes violent passion, concerning which the practice of the most correct performers is not uniform; some of them rejecting, others admitting, the use of such figures. 2. Short metaphors appear with perfect propriety in oratory, memoirs, essays, novels, but particularly in history. The historian is scarcely permitted to indulge in hunting after comparisons; he is seldom allowed to introduce the more elevated and poetical figures of apostrophe and personification; he is not even at liberty to amuse with metaphors extended to many circumstances of resemblance, but to those expressed in single or few words, he has the most approved access. Such ornaments are the proper implements of a vigorous and decisive mind, which has leisure only to snatch a ray of embellishment from a passing object, without turning aside from its capital pursuit. The superior attention of the historian to the matter of which he treats, the dignity and gravity of his style, which ought to correspond to the importance of his matter, call upon him to communicate his thoughts in the most correct, perspicuous, and forcible language; and such, in a serene state of the mind, is the language of short metaphor. 3. Both Shakspeare and Otway conceived short metaphors to be perfectly consistent with the most violent agitations of passion. It is in vain to appeal to the authority of other tragic poets. They are unanimous for the use of similar metaphors in similar situations. Many of them, indeed, have so overloaded their pathetic scenes with this brilliant ornament, that it obscures the meaning, diminishes the impression, and sometimes disgusts the reader. 4. But extended metaphors, which chiefly amuse the imagination by a great variety of pretty and pleasant resemblances, are much more circumscribed in their appearance. They are too refined to occur in conversation, or on any occasion that allows not time for recollection, and for tracing similitudes which are at least so remote and unexpected as to surprise and captivate. They present themselves with perfect grace, in pulpit-oratory, in political writings, in works of criticism, and in essays. But their peculiar province is descriptive poetry, and the dispassionate parts of epic. They are inconsistent with violent passion, and are seldom introduced with success into tragedy. They are calculated entirely to please the imagination. They interfere with all the strong feelings of the heart. The mind that can either utter or relish them may be gay and elevated, but must be composed and tranquil. Under the pressure of deep distress, they are disgusting and intolerable. 14 CHAPTER III. COMPARISONS OR SIMILES. 273. COMPARISONS or similes differ chiefly from metaphors in the vigour of imagination with which they are conceived. In the use of metaphors, we suppose the primary object transformed into the resembling one. the use of comparisons, we soar not so high, but content ourselves with remarking similitude merely. In Illus. 1. In all comparisons there should be found something new or surprising in order to please and illustrate. There is nothing new or surprising in the resemblance of the individuals of the same species, as when we say, one man, or one horse, or one oak, is like another; because these individuals are formed by nature similar, and no comparison instituted between them can be supposed to produce any novelty or surprise. To find, then, resemblances which are new or surprising, and which, consequently, may produce pleasure or illustration, we must search for them where they are not commonly to be expected, between things of different species. Example. If, for instance, I discover a resemblance between a man and a horse in swiftness, between a man and an oak in strength, or between a man and a rock in steadiness, such resemblances, being and generally unobserved, excite surprise and pleasure, and improve my conceptions of the swiftness, strength, and steadiness, of the new, man. Corol. Hence results the first general principle concerning good comparisons or resemblance; they must be drawn from one species of things to another, and never instituted between things of the same species. Illus. 2. Again, when we place a great object opposite to a little one, a beautiful picture to an indifferent one, or one shade of the same colour, to another; we are surprised to find, that things which seemed so much alike differ so widely. We conceive the beauties and defects of the objects contrasted greater, perhaps, than they really are, at least much greater than they appear when surveyed apart. Corol. Hence is derived the second principle respecting compari sons, that contrasts must be instituted between things of the same species, because no pleasure or illustration can result from finding dissimilitude between things naturally different. Illus. 3. As it is necessary there should be resemblance in all comparisons, it is obvious that the objects of different senses cannot furnish foundation for them. There is no resemblance between a sound and a color, a smell and a surface of velvet. Corol. Comparisons, then, must farther take place between the objects of the same sense; and, as the sight is the most lively and distinct of all the senses, and the ideas it communicates make the deepest impression on the mind, the most beautiful and striking comparisons are deduced from the objects of this sense. (See the Ex. and Analysis to Art. 218.) Ilus. 4. But though the far greater part of comparisons result from the resemblance of the qualities of sensible objects alone, yet they are sometimes instituted between the qualities of sensible and intellectual objects. Example. Thus, Shakspeare compares adversity to a toad, and slander to the bite of a crocodile. Scholium. In all these cases, however, the abstract or intellectual object is personified, and the comparison is founded on the supposed resemblance which the qualities of the intellectual object bear to those of the sensible object, after the former also has become a sensible object. Illus. 5. In addition to the kinds of similes already explained, there is another that frequently occurs, in which the effects only of two objects are compared. The same analogy takes place with regard to them, which was formerly observed to appear in the resemblance of the sound of words to their sense. (Art. 225.) The objects compared are not perhaps similar in their qualities, at least the merit of the figure does not depend on this circumstance, but upon the similarity of the impressions or emotions they produce in the mind. Examples. Upon this principle, the following comparisons are successfully framed. 1. " Öften, like the evening sun, comes the memory of former times on my soul." 2. "The music was like the memory of joys that are past, pleasant and mournful to the soul."t 3. "Sorrow, like a cloud on the sun, shades the soul of Clessamour." 4. "Pleasant are the words of the song, and lovely are the tales of other times. They are like the dew of the morning on the hill of roses, when the sun is faint on its side, and the lake is settled and blue in the vale."|| Analysis. There is no resemblance between the evening sun and the memory of past joys, between sorrow and a cloud, or between the words of the song, and the dew of the morning; but every person must perceive, that by these objects similar impressions or emotions are excited in the mind. 274. All comparisons may be reduced to the following heads. I. Those which improve our conceptions of the objects they are brought to illustrate,--we call explaining comparisons. II. Those which augment the pleasure of imagination by a splendid assemblage of other adjacent and agreeable objects,-we call embellishing comparisons. III. And, finally, those which elevate or depress the principal object, an operation often requisite in writing, but more particularly in speaking,—we call comparisons of advantage, or of disadvantage. 275. All manner of subjects admit of explaining comparisons. Let an author be reasoning ever so strictly, or treating the most abstruse point in philosophy, he may very prop * Ossian. 1 † Ibid. + Ibid. || Ibid. |