York. I am the last of Noble Edward’s sons,
Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first:
In war, was never lion rag’d more fierce;
In peace, was never gentle lamb more mild;
Than was that young and princely gentleman.
His face thou hast; for even so look’d he,
Accomplish’d with the number of thy hours.
But when he frown’d, it was against the French,
And not against his friends. His noble hand
Did win what he did spend; and spent not that
Which his triumphant father’s hand had won.
His hands were guilty of no kindred’s blood,
But bloody with the enemies of his kin.
Oh, Richard! York is too far gone with grief,
Or else he never would compare between.
Richard II. act 2. sc. 3.
Milton has a peculiar talent in embellishing the principal subject by associating it with others that are agreeable, which is the third end of a comparison. Similes of this kind have, beside, a separate effect: they diversify the narration by new images that are not strictly necessary to the comparison: they are short episodes, which, without distracting us from the principal subject, afford great delight by their beauty and variety:
He scarce had ceas’d, when the superior fiend
Was moving toward the shore; his pond’rous shield,
Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,
Behind him cast; the broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
At ev’ning from the top of Fesole,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.
Milton, b. 1.
—— Thus far these, beyond
Compare of mortal prowess, yet observ’d
Their dread commander. He, above the rest
In shape and gesture proudly eminent,
Stood like a tow’r; his form had yet not lost
All her original brightness, nor appear’d
Less than arch-angel ruin’d, and th’ excess
Of glory obscur’d: as when the sun new-risen
Looks through the horizontal misty air
Shorn of his beams; or from behind the moon
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds
On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs.
Milton, b. 1.
As when a vulture on Imaus bred,
Whose snowy ridge the roving Tartar bounds,
Dislodging from a region scarce of prey
To gorge the flesh of lambs, or yeanling kids,
On hills where flocks are fed, flies toward the springs
Of Ganges or Hydaspes, Indian streams,
But in his way lights on the barren plains
Of Sericana, where Chineses drive
With sails and wind their cany waggons light:
So on this windy sea of land, the fiend
Walk’d up and down alone, bent on his prey.
Milton, b. 3.
—— Yet higher than their tops
The verdurous wall of Paradise up sprung:
Which to our general sire gave prospect large
Into this nether empire neighbouring round.
And higher than that wall, a circling row
Of goodliest trees loaden with fairest fruit,
Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue,
Appear’d, with gay enamel’d colours mix’d,
On which the sun more glad impress’d his beams
Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow,
When God hath show’r’d the earth; so lovely seem’d
That landscape: and of pure now purer air
Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires
Vernal delight and joy, able to drive
All sadness but despair: now gentle gales
Fanning their odoriferous wings dispense
Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils. As when to them who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambic, off at sea North-east winds blow
Sabean odour from the spicy shore
Of Arabie the Blest; with such delay
Well pleas’d they slack their course, and many a league,
Chear’d with the grateful smell, old Ocean smiles.
Milton, b. 4.
With regard to similes of this kind, it will readily occur to the reader, that when the resembling subject or circumstance is once properly introduced in a simile, the mind passes easily to the new objects, and is transitorily amused with them, without feeling any disgust at the slight interruption. Thus, in fine weather, the momentary excursions of a traveller for agreeable prospects or sumptuous buildings, chear his mind, relieve him from the langour of uniformity, and without much lengthening his journey in reality, shorten it greatly in appearance.
Next of comparisons that aggrandize or elevate. These make stronger impressions than any other sort; the reason of which may be gathered from the chapter of grandeur and sublimity, and, without reasoning, will be evident from the following instances.
As when a flame the winding valley fills,
And runs on crackling shrubs between the hills,
Then o’er the stubble up the mountain flies,
Fires the high woods, and blazes to the skies,
This way and that, the spreading torrent roars;
So sweeps the hero through the wasted shores.
Around him wide, immense destruction pours,
And earth is delug’d with the sanguine show’rs.
Iliad xx. 569.
Through blood, through death, Achilles still proceeds,
O’er slaughter’d heroes, and o’er rolling steeds.
As when avenging flames with fury driv’n
On guilty towns exert the wrath of Heav’n,
The pale inhabitants, some fall, some fly,
And the red vapours purple all the sky.
So rag’d Achilles: Death, and dire dismay,
And toils, and terrors, fill’d the dreadful day.
Iliad xxi. 605.