His Intent, as I said, was to recount the Disadvantages of a City Life; and mentioning, among them, the Obstructions in the Streets, from Chairs and Coaches, he takes Occasion, by the bye, to reproach the Sloth and Laziness of Drusus. So again, enumerating the Miseries of Old Age, he adds:
[187] ——Circumsilit, agmine facto, Morborum omne genus; quorum si nomina quæras Promptius expediam, quot amaverit Hippia mœchos, Quot Themison ægros Autumno occiderit uno, Quot Basilus socios, quot circumscripserit Hirrus Pupillos, &c.
In fine, he wears no Limb about him sound: With Sores and Sicknesses belleaguer'd round: Ask me their Names, I sooner cou'd relate How many Drudges on salt Hippia wait; What Crouds of Patients the Town Doctor kills, Or how, last Fall, he rais'd the Weekly Bills; What Provinces by Basilus were spoil'd, What Herds of Heirs by Guardians are beguil'd. Dryden.
These Excursions are chiefly suitable to Satire; and there's no Branch of it attended with greater Wit and Poignancy.
I have not Room here, to treat of Comparisons in the Manner they deserve; they being so various, that they would require an entire Dissertation. When they are ill drawn, nothing is more ridiculous; when well, nothing more beautiful. No kind of Style is excluded from them, and they are not only an Ornament, but often an Illustration of the Subject. They ought always to appear natural, never forced, or far fetch'd. Avoid, therefore, the Fault of those Writers, who find out what they call Similies first, and afterwards Matter to apply to them. Not that they are guilty of it, whose Comparisons don't in every Respect coincide with what they were brought to illustrate. Even the most elegant of them agree sometimes with the Description but in one Adjunct. Thus Virgil, in the eighth Æneis:
[188] Dixerat; & niveis hinc atque hinc Diva lacertis Cunctantem amplexu molli fovet: ille repente Accepit solitam flammam; notusque medullas Intravit calor, & labefacta per ossa cucurrit. Haud secus atque olim tonitru cum rupta corusco Ignea rima micans percurrit lumine nimbos.
She said; and round him threw her snowy Arms, And warm'd him, wav'ring, with a soft Embrace: He soon receives the wonted Flame, which flies Swift thro' his Marrow, and his melting Bones; As when in Thunder, lanc'd along the Sky, A Streak of Fire runs streaming thro' the Clouds.
Upon a nice Scrutiny, the Parallel between Love and Thunder will hold but very little: And yet no good Judge, I believe, will dispute the Elegance of the above Comparison.
On this Head our Moderns seem to excel the Ancients, and to have found out an Use of Comparisons which they were utter Strangers to. Theirs are merely ornamental; ours often contain the Points of Epigram, the Jibes of Satire, and the Banters of Comedy; an Art which Ovid, Martial, Juvenal, Horace and Terence knew very little of. It will not be allow'd me to produce Instances here; but innumerable I could produce, if a Mixture of different Languages, and especially of our own, would not sound disagreeable in these Latin Dissertations[189]. 'Tis true, Tragic and Epic Poets ought totally to avoid these witty Allusions; which are below the Severity of their Style, and the Dignity of their Compositions. The Comparisons that serve for Illustration only, come within their Province; such as we meet with very frequently in Homer and Virgil: Tho' (to say the Truth) even the best Writers among the Ancients seem on this Head to labour under a Poverty of Matter. In the Description of a Battle, for Instance, the Similes of a Lion, a Bull, a Serpent, an Eagle, and other Animals of the fiercer kind, recur too frequently under some small Variations. But in After-Ages the Increase of Arts, and Sciences, and of Religion more particularly, open'd a new Field, which has minister'd abundantly not only to the Emolument of Mankind in general, but in this, and in all other Respects, to the Refinement of Wit.
If I must give my Opinion of those luxurious Comparisons that deviate from the Subject, which Homer, chiefly, among the Ancients, and Milton, among the Moderns, run into; I must confess, they neither deserve Commendation, nor are capable of Defence. But as they have the Sanction of so great Authority, it is not for me to pass Judgment on them, but leave every one to follow his own.