Bayes. Because she’s surpris’d; that’s a general rule; you must ever make a simile when you are surprised; ’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 end; and of this defect instances are not rare even among good writers. To complete the present subject, it will be necessary to make some observations upon such faulty comparisons. I begin 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.
Horace, Carm. l. 1. 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.
Æneid ix. 28.
Talibus orabat, talesque miserrima fletus
Fertque refertque soror; sed nullus 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 stridor; 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.
Æneid 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 II. act 4. sc. 3.
King John. Oh! Cousin, thou art come to set mine eye;
The tackle of my heart is crack’d and burnt;
And all the shrowds wherewith my life should sail,
Are turned to one thread, one little hair:
My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,
Which holds but till thy news be uttered.
King John, act 5. sc. 10.
York. My uncles both are slain in rescuing me:
And all my followers, to the eager foe
Turn back, and fly like ships before the wind,
Or lambs pursu’d by hunger-starved wolves.
Third Part Henry VI. act 1. sc. 6.
The latter of the two similes is good. The former, because of the faintness of the resemblance, produces no good effect, and crowds the narration with an useless image.
The next error I shall mention is a capital one. In an epic poem, or in any elevated subject, a writer ought to avoid raising a simile upon a low image, which never fails to bring down the principal subject. In general, it is a rule, that a grand object ought never to be resembled to one that is diminutive, however delicate the resemblance may be. It is the peculiar character of a grand object to fix the attention, and swell the mind: in this state, it is disagreeable to contract the mind to a minute object, however elegant. The resembling an object to one that is greater, has, on the contrary, a good effect, by raising or swelling the mind. One passes with satisfaction from a small to a great object; but cannot be drawn down, without reluctance, from great to small. Hence the following similes are faulty.