I now proceed to illustrate by particular instances the different means by which comparison can afford pleasure; and, in the order above established, I shall begin with those instances that are agreeable by suggesting some unusual resemblance or contrast:
Sweet are the uses of Adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in her head.
As you like it, act 2, sc. 1.
Gardiner. Bolingbroke hath seiz’d the wasteful King.
What pity is’t that he had not so trimm’d
And dress’d his land, as we this garden dress,
And wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees;
Left, being over proud with sap and blood,
With too much riches it confound itself.
Had he done so to great and growing men,
They might have liv’d to bear, and he to taste
Their fruits of duty. All superfluous branches
We lop away, that bearing boughs may live:
Had he done so, himself had borne the crown,
Which waste and idle hours have quite thrown down.
Richard II. act 3. sc. 7.
See, how the Morning opes her golden gates,
And takes her farewell of the glorious sun;
How well resembles it the prime of youth,
Trim’d like a yonker prancing to his love.
Second Part Henry VI.> act 2. sc. 1.
Brutus. O Cassius, you are yoked with a lamb,
That carries anger as the flint bears fire;
Who, much inforced, shows a hasty spark,
And straight is cold again.
Julius Cæsar, act 4. sc. 3.
Thus they their doubtful consultations dark
Ended, rejoicing in their matchless chief:
As when from mountain-tops the dusky clouds,
Ascending, while the North-wind sleeps, o’erspread
Heav’n’s chearful face, the lowring element
Scowls o’er the darken’d landscape, snow, and shower;
If chance the radiant sun with farewell sweet
Extend his ev’ning-beam, the fields revive,
The birds their notes renew, and bleating herds
Attest their joy, that hill and valley rings.
Paradise Lost, book 2.
The last exertion of courage compared to the blaze of a lamp before extinguishing, Tasso Gierusalem, canto 19. st. 22.
As the bright stars, and milky way,
Shew’d by the night, are hid by day:
So we in that accomplish’d mind,
Help’d by the night, new graces find,
Which, by the splendor of her view
Dazzled before, we never knew.
Waller.
None of the foregoing similes, as it appears to me, have the effect to add any lustre to the principal subject; and therefore the pleasure they afford, must arise from suggesting resemblances that are not obvious: I mean the chief pleasure; for undoubtedly a beautiful subject introduced to form the simile affords a separate pleasure, which is felt in the similes mentioned, particularly in that cited from Milton.
The next effect of a comparison in the order mentioned, is to place an object in a strong point of view; which I think is done sensibly in the following similes.