by other instances. Love, for example, in its infancy, rousing the imagination, prompts the heart to display itself in figurative language, and in si

miles :

Troilus. Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love,
What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?
Her bed is, India; there she lies, a pearl:
Between our Ilium, and where she resides,
Let it be call'd the wild and wandering flood;
Ourself the merchant; and the sailing Pandar
Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.

Again:

Troilus and Cressida, Act 1. Sc. 1.

Come, gentle Night; come, loving black-brow'd Night!
Give me my Romeo; and when he shall die,

Take him, and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heav'n so fine,
That all the world shall be in love with Night,
And pay no worship to the garish Sun.

Romeo and Juliet, Act III. Sc. 4.

The dread of a misfortune, however imminent, involving always some doubt and uncertainty, agitates the mind, and excites the imagination :

Wolsey.

-Nay, then, farewell:

I've touch'd the highest point of all my greatness,
And from that full meridian of my glory

I haste now to my setting. I shall fall,
Like a bright exhalation in the evening,
And no man see me more.

Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 4.

But it will be a better illustration of the present head, to give examples where comparisons are improperly introduced. I have had already occasion to observe, that similes are not the language of a man in his ordinary state of mind, despatching his daily and usual work. For that reason, the following speech of a gardener to his servants, is extremely improper:

Go, bind thon up yon dangling apricots,
Which like unruly children, make their sire
Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight :
Give some supportance to the bending twigs.
Go thou; and like an executioner,
Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays,
That look too lofty in our commonwealth;
All must be even in our government.

Richard 11. Act III. Sc. 7.

The fertility of Shakspeare's vein betrays him frequently into this error. There is the same impropriety in another simile of his :

Hero. Good Margaret, run thee into the parlour;
There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice;
Whisper her ear, and tell her, I and Ursula
Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse
Is all of her say that thou overheard'st us;
And bid her steal into the pleached bower,
Where honeysuckles; ripen'd by the sun,
Forbid the sun to enter; like to favourites,
Made proud by princes that advance their pride
Against that power that bred it.

Much Ado about Nothing, Act III. Sc. 1.

Rooted grief, deep anguish, terror, remorse, despair, and all the severe dispiriting passions, are declared enemies, perhaps not to figurative language in general, but undoubtedly to the pomp and solemnity of comparison. Upon that account, the simile pronounced by young Rutland, under a terror of death from an inveterate enemy, and praying mercy, is unnatural:

So looks the pent-up lion o'er the wretch
That trembles under his devouring paws;
And so he walks insulting o'er his prey,
And so he comes to rend his limbs asunder.
Ah, gentle Clifford, kill me with thy sword,
And not with such a cruel threat'ning look.

Third Part of Henry VI. Act I. Sc. 5.

Nothing appears more out of place, nor more awkwardly introduced, than the following simile:

Lucia..

-Farewell, my Portius,

Farewell, though death is in the word, for-ever !

Portuis. Stay, Lucia, stay; what dost thou say, for-ever ? Lucia. Have I not sworn? If, Portius, thy success

Must throw thy brother on his fate, farewell.

Oh, how shall I repeat the word, for ever?

Portius. Thus, o'er the dying lamp th' unsteady flame Hangs quivering on a point, leaps off by fits,

And falls again, as loth to quit its hold.*

-Thou must not go, my soul still hovers o'er thee, And can't get loose.

Cato, Act III. Sc. 2.

Nor doth the simile which closes the first act of the same tragedy make a better appearance; the situation there represented being too dispiriting for a simile. A simile is improper for one who dreads the discovery of a secret machination;

Zara. The mute not yet return'd! Ha! 'twas the King,
The King that parted hence! frowning he went;
His eyes like meteors roll'd, then darted down
Their red and angry beams; as if his sight
Would, like the raging Dog-star, scorch the earth,
And kindle ruin in its course.

Mourning Bride, Act v. Sc. 3.

A man spent and dispirited after losing a battle, is not disposed to heighten or illustrate his discourse by similes:

York. With this we charg'd again; but out, alas!

We bodg'd again; as I have seen a swan

With bootless labour swim against the tide,

And spend her strength with over-matching waves.
Ab! bark, the fatal followers do pursue ;
And I am faint and cannot fly their fury,

The sands are number'd that make up my life,
Here must I stay, and here my life must end.

Third Part Henry VI, Act i. Sc. 8. Far less is a man disposed to similes who is not only defeated in a pitched battle, but lies at the point of death mortally wounded:

* This simile would have a fine effect pronounced by the chorus in a Greek tragedy.

Warwick.

—~My mangled body shows

My blood, my want of strength; my sick heart shows
That I must yield my body to the earth,
And, by my fall, the conquest to my foe.
Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge,
Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle;
Under whose shade the ramping lion slept,

Whose top-branch over-peer'd Jove's spreading tree,
And kept low shrubs from winter's pow'rful wind.

Third Part, Henry VI. Act V. Sc. 3.

Queen Katherine, deserted by the King, and in the deepest affliction on her divorce, could not be disposed to any sallies of imagination: and for that reason, the following simile, however beautiful in the mouth of a spectator, is scarce proper in her

own:

I am the most unhappy woman living,

Shipwreck'd upon a kingdom, where no pity,
No friends, no hope! no kindred weep for me!
Almost no grave allow'd me! like the lily,

That once was mistress of the field, and flourish'd,
I'll hang my head, and perish.

King Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 1.

Similes thus unseasonably introduced, are finely ridiculed in the Rehearsal :

Bayes. Now here she must make a simile.

Smith. Where's the necessity of that, Mr. Bayes?

Bayes. Because she's surpris'd; that's a general rule; you must ever make a simile when you are surpris'd; 'tis a new way of writing.

A comparison is not always faultless even where it is properly introduced. I have endeavoured above to give a general view of the different ends to which a comparison may contribute: a comparison, like other human productions, may fall short of its aim; of which defect instances are not rare even among good writers; and to complete the present subject, it will be necessary to make some observations upon such faulty comparisons. I begin VOL. II. 201

with observing, that nothing can be more erroneous than to institute a comparison too faint: a distant resemblance or contrast fatigues the mind with its obscurity, instead of amusing it: and tends not to fulfil any one end of a comparison. The following similes seem to labour under this defect:

Albus ut obscuro deterget nubila cœlo
Sæpe Notus, neque parturit imbres
Perpetuos: sic tu sapiens finire memento
Tristitiam, vitæque labores,

Molli, Plance, mero.

Horat. Carm. 1. i. ode 7.

-Medio dux agmine Turnus

Vertitur arma tenens, et toto vertice supra est.
Ceu septem surgens sedatis amnibus altus
Per tacitum Ganges; aut pingui flumine Nilus
Cum refluit campis, et jam se condidit alveo.

Eneid, ix. 28.

Talibus orabat, talesque miserrima fletus
Pertque refertque soror: sed nullis ille movetur
Fletibus, aut voces ullas tractabilis audit.

Fata obstant: placidasque viri Deus obstruit aures.
Ac veluti annoso validam cum robore quercum
Alpini Boreæ, nunc hinc, nunc flatibus illinc
Eruere inter se certant; it strador, et alte
Consternunt terram concusso stipite frondes:
Ipsa hæret scopulis ; et quantum vertice ad auras
Æthereas, tantum radice in Tartara tendit.
Haud secus assiduis hinc atque hinc vocibus heros
Tunditur, et magno persentit pectore curas:
Mens immota manet, lacrymæ volvuntur inanes.

Eneid, iv. 437.

K. Rich. Give me the crown. Here, Cousin, seize the crown,

Here, on this side, my hand; on that side, thine.

Now is this golden crown like a deep well,

That owes two buckets, filling one another;

The emptier ever dancing in the air,

The other down, unseen and full of water:
That bucket down, and full of tears, am I,
Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.

Richard 11. Act IV. Sc. 3.