"At first, like thunder's distant tone,
The rattling din came rolling on."—Hogg.
"Man, like the generous vine, supported lives;
The strength he gains, is from th' embrace he gives."—Pope.
OBS.—Comparisons are sometimes made in a manner sufficiently intelligible, without any express term to point them out. In the following passage, we have a triple example of what seems the Simile, without the usual sign—without like, as, or so: "Away with all tampering with such a question! Away with all trifling with the man in fetters! Give a hungry man a stone, and tell what beautiful houses are made of it;—give ice to a freezing man, and tell him of its good properties in hot weather;—throw a drowning man a dollar, as a mark of your good will;—but do not mock the bondman in his misery, by giving him a Bible when he cannot read it."—FREDERICK DOUGLASS: Liberty Bell, 1848.
II. A Metaphor is a figure that expresses or suggests the resemblance of two objects by applying either the name, or some attribute, adjunct, or action, of the one, directly to the other; as,
1. "The LORD is my rock, and my fortress."—Psal., xviii 1.
2. "His eye was morning's brightest ray."—Hogg.
3. "An angler in the tides of fame."—Id., Q. W.
4. "Beside him sleeps the warrior's bow."—Langhorne.
5. "Wild fancies in his moody brain Gambol'd unbridled and unbound."—Hogg, Q. W.
6. "Speechless, and fix'd in all the death of wo."—Thomson.