ELEMENTS
OF
CRITICISM.

In THREE VOLUMES.
VOLUME III.
EDINBURGH:
Printed for A. Millar, London;
AND
A. Kincaid & J. Bell, Edinburgh,
MDCCLXII.

ELEMENTS
OF
CRITICISM.

CHAP. XIX.

COMPARISONS.

COmparisons, as observed above[1]; serve two different purposes: When addressed to the understanding, their purpose is to instruct; when to the heart, their purpose is to give pleasure. With respect to the latter, a comparison may be employ’d to produce various pleasures by different means. First, by suggesting some unusual resemblance or contrast: second, by setting an object in the strongest light: third, by associating an object with others that are agreeable: fourth, by elevating an object: and, fifth, by depressing it. And that comparisons may produce various pleasures by these different means, appears from what is said in the chapter above cited; and will be made still more evident by examples, which shall be given after premising some general observations.

An object of one sense cannot be compared to an object of another; for such objects are totally separated from each other, and have no circumstance in common to admit either resemblance or contrast. Objects of hearing may be compared, as also of taste, and of touch. But the chief fund of comparison are objects of sight; because, in writing or speaking, things can only be compared in idea, and the ideas of visible objects are by far more lively than those of any other sense.

It has no good effect to compare things by way of simile that are of the same kind, nor to contrast things of different kinds. The reason is given in the chapter cited above; and the reason shall be illustrated by examples. The first is a resemblance instituted betwixt two objects so nearly related as to make little or no impression.

This just rebuke inflam’d the Lycian crew,
They join, they thicken, and th’ assault renew;
Unmov’d th’ embody’d Greeks their fury dare,
And fix’d support the weight of all the war;
Nor could the Greeks repel the Lycian pow’rs,
Nor the bold Lycians force the Grecian tow’rs.
As on the confines of adjoining grounds,
Two stubborn swains with blows dispute their bounds;
They tugg, they sweat; but neither gain, nor yield,
One foot, one inch, of the contended field:
Thus obstinate to death, they fight, they fall;
Nor these can keep, nor those can win the wall.
Iliad, xii. 505.

Another from Milton labours under the same defect. Speaking of the fallen angels searching for mines of gold:

A numerous brigade hasten’d: as when bands
Of pioneers with spade and pick-ax arm’d
Forerun the royal camp to trench a field
Or cast a rampart.

The next shall be of things contrasted that are of different kinds.

Queen. What, is my Richard both in shape and mind
Transform’d and weak? Hath Bolingbroke depos’d
Thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart?
The lion, dying, thrusteth forth his paw,
And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage
To be o’erpower’d: and wilt thou, pupil-like,
Take thy correction mildly, kiss the rod,
And fawn on rage with base humility?
Richard II. act 5. sc. 1.

This comparison has scarce any force. A man and a lion are of different species; and there is no such resemblance betwixt them in general, as to produce any strong effect by contrasting particular attributes or circumstances.

A third general observation is, That abstract terms can never be the subject of comparison, otherwise than by being personified. Shakespear compares adversity to a toad, and slander to the bite of a crocodile; but in such comparisons these abstract terms must be imagined sensible beings.

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.

As when two scales are charg’d with doubtful loads,
From side to side the trembling balance nods,
(While some laborious matron, just and poor,
With nice exactness weighs her woolly store),
Till pois’d aloft, the resting beam suspends
Each equal weight; nor this nor that descends:
So stood the war, till Hector’s matchless might,
With fates prevailing, turn’d the scale of fight.
Fierce as a whirlwind up the walls he flies,
And fires his host with loud repeated cries.
Iliad, b. xii. 52

Ut flos in septis secretis nascitur hortis,
Ignotus pecori, nullo contusus aratro,
Quem mulcent auræ, firmat sol, educat imber,
Multi illum pueri, multæ cupiere puellæ.
Idem, cum tenui carptus defloruit ungui,
Nulli illum pueri, nullæ cupiere puellæ.
Sic virgo, dum intacta manet, dum cara suis; sed
Cum castum amisit, polluto corpore, florem,
Nec pueris jucunda manet, nec cara puellis.
Catullus.

The imitation of this beautiful simile by Ariosto, canto 1. st. 42. falls short of the original. It is also in part imitated by Pope[2].

Lucetta. I do not seek to quench your love’s hot fire, But qualify the fires extreme rage, Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.

Julia. The more thou damm’st it up, the more it burns: The current, that with gentle murmur glides, Thou know’st, being stopp’d, impatiently doth rage; But when his fair course is not hindered, He makes sweet music with th’ enamel’d stones Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge He overtaketh in his pilgrimage. And so by many winding nooks he strays With willing sport, to the wild ocean. Then let me go, and hinder not my course; I’ll be as patient as a gentle stream, And make a pastime of each weary step Till the last step have brought me to my love; And there I’ll rest, as, after much turmoil, A blessed soul doth in Elysium.

Two Gentlemen of Verona, act 2. sc. 10.

———— She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i’ th’ bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pin’d in thought;
And with a green and yellow melancholy,
She sat like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at Grief.
Twelfth-Night, act 2. sc. 6.

York. Then, as I said, the Duke, great Bolingbroke, Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed, Which his aspiring rider seem’d to know, With slow but stately pace, kept on his course: While all tongues cry’d, God save thee, Bolingbroke.

Duchess. Alas! poor Richard, where rides he the while?

York. As in a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-grac’d actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious: Even so, or with much more contempt, mens eyes Did scowl on Richard; no man cry’d, God save him! No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home; But dust was thrown upon his sacred head; Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off, His face still combating with tears and smiles, The badges of his grief and patience; That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel’d The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted; And barbarism itself have pitied him.

Richard II. act 5. sc. 3.

Northumberland. How doth my son and brother?
Thou tremblest, and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so wo-be-gone,
Drew Priam’s curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him, half his Troy was burn’d;
But Priam found the fire, ere he his tongue:
And I my Percy’s death, ere thou report’st it.
Second Part Henry IV. act 1. sc. 3.

Why, then I do but dream on sov’reignty,
Like one that stands upon a promontory,
And spies a far-off shore where he would tread,
Wishing his foot were equal with his eye,
And chides the sea that sunders him from thence,
Saying, he’ll lave it dry to have his way:
So do I wish, the crown being so far off,
And so I chide the means that keep me from it,
And so (I say) I’ll cut the causes off,
Flatt’ring my mind with things impossible.
Third Part Henry VI. act 3. sc. 3.

—————— Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more.
Macbeth, act 5. sc. 5.

O thou Goddess,
Thou divine Nature! how thyself thou blazon’st
In these two princely boys! they are as gentle
As zephyrs blowing below the violet,
Not wagging his sweet head; and yet as rough,
(Their royal blood inchas’d) as the rud’st wind,
That by the top doth take the mountain-pine,
And make him stoop to th’ vale.
Cymbeline, act 4. sc. 4.

The sight obtained of the city of Jerusalem by the Christian army, compared to that of land discovered after a long voyage, Tasso’s Gierusalem, canto 3. st. 4. The fury of Rinaldo subsiding when not opposed, to that of wind or water when it has a free passage, canto 20. st. 58.

As words convey but a faint and obscure notion of great numbers, a poet, to give a high notion of the object he describes with regard to number, does well to compare it to what is familiar and commonly known. Thus Homer[3] compares the Grecian army in point of number to a swarm of bees. In another passage[4] he compares it to that profusion of leaves and flowers which appear in the spring, or of insects in a summer’s evening. And Milton,

—— As when the potent rod
Of Amram’s son in Egypt’s evil day
Wav’d round the coast, up call’d a pitchy cloud
Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,
That o’er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung
Like night, and darken’d all the land of Nile:
So numberless were those bad angels seen,
Hovering on wing under the cope of hell,
’Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires.
Paradise Lost, book 1.

Such comparisons have, by some writers[5], been condemned for the lowness of the images introduced: but surely without reason; for, with regard to numbers, they put the principal subject in a strong light.

The foregoing comparisons operate by resemblance; others have the same effect by contrast:

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.

Methinks, King Richard and myself should meet
With no less terror than the elements
Of fire and water, when their thund’ring shock,
At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.
Richard II. act. 3. sc. 5.

I beg peculiar attention to the following simile, for a reason that shall be mentioned.

Thus breathing death, in terrible array,
The close-compacted legions urg’d their way:
Fierce they drove on, impatient to destroy;
Troy charg’d the first, and Hector first of Troy.
As from some mountain’s craggy forehead torn,
A rock’s round fragment flies with fury born,
(Which from the stubborn stone a torrent rends)
Precipitate the pond’rous mass descends:
From steep to steep the rolling ruin bounds:
At every shock the crackling wood resounds;
Still gath’ring force, it smoaks; and urg’d amain,
Whirls, leaps, and thunders down, impetuous to the plain:
There stops—So Hector. Their whole force he prov’d,
Resistless when he rag’d; and when he stopt, unmov’d.
Iliad xiii. 187.

The image of a falling rock is certainly not elevating[6]. Yet undoubtedly the foregoing image fires and swells the mind. It is grand therefore, if not sublime. And that there is a real, though delicate distinction, betwixt these two feelings, will be illustrated from the following simile.

So saying, a noble stroke he lifted high,
Which hung not, but so swift with tempest fell
On the proud crest of Satan, that no sight,
Nor motion of swift thought, less could his shield
Such ruin intercept. Ten paces huge
He back recoil’d; the tenth on bended knee
His massy spear upstaid; as if on earth
Winds under ground or waters forcing way
Sidelong had push’d a mountain from his seat
Half sunk with all pines.
Milton, b. 6.

A comparison by contrast may contribute to grandeur or elevation, not less than by resemblance; of which the following comparison of Lucan is a remarkable instance.

Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa Catoni.

Considering that the Heathen deities possessed a rank but one degree above that of mankind, I think it scarce possible, by a single expression, to elevate or dignify more one of the human species, than is done by this comparison. I am sensible, at the same time, that such a comparison among Christians, who entertain juster notions of the Deity, would justly be reckoned extravagant and absurd.

The last article mentioned, is that of lessening or depressing a hated or disagreeable object; which is effectually done by resembling it to any thing that is low or despicable. Thus Milton, in his description of the rout of the rebel-angels, happily expresses their terror and dismay in the following simile.

—— As a herd
Of goats or timorous flock together throng’d
Drove them before him thunder-struck, pursu’d
With terrors and with furies to the bounds
And crystal wall of heav’n, which op’ning wide,
Rowl’d inward, and a spacious gap disclos’d
Into the wasteful deep; the monstrous sight
Strook them with horror backward, but far worse
Urg’d them behind; headlong themselves they threw
Down from the verge of heav’n.
Milton, b. 6.

In the same view, Homer, I think, may be defended, in comparing the shouts of the Trojans in battle, to the noise of cranes[7], and to the bleating of a flock of sheep[8]: and it is no objection, that these are low images; for by opposing the noisy march of the Trojans to the silent and manly march of the Greeks, he certainly intended to lessen the former. Addison[9], imagining the figure that men make in the sight of a superior being, takes opportunity to mortify their pride by comparing them to a swarm of pismires.

A comparison that has none of the good effects mentioned in this discourse, but is built upon common and trifling circumstances, makes a mighty silly figure: “Non sum nescius, grandia consilia a multis plerumque causis, ceu magna navigia a plurimis remis, impelli[10].”

By this time I imagine the different purposes of comparison, and the various impressions it makes on the mind, are sufficiently illustrated by proper examples. This was an easy work. It is more difficult to lay down rules about the propriety or impropriety of comparisons; in what circumstances they may be introduced, and in what circumstances they are out of place. It is evident, that a comparison is not proper upon every occasion; a man in his cool and sedate moments, is not disposed to poetical flights, nor to sacrifice truth and reality to the delusive operations of the imagination; far less is he so disposed, when oppressed with cares, or interested in some important transaction that occupies him totally. The region of comparison and of all figurative expression, lies betwixt these two extremes. It is observable, that a man, when elevated or animated by any passion, is disposed to elevate or animate all his objects: he avoids familiar names, exalts objects by circumlocution and metaphor, and gives even life and voluntary action to inanimate beings. In this warmth of mind, the highest poetical flights are indulged, and the boldest similes and metaphors relished[11]. But without soaring so high, the mind is frequently in a tone to relish chaste and moderate ornament; such as comparisons that set the principal object in a strong point of view, or that embellish and diversify the narration. In general, when by any animating passion, whether pleasant or painful, an impulse is given to the imagination; we are in that condition wonderfully disposed to every sort of figurative expression, and in particular to comparisons. This in a great measure is evident from the comparisons already mentioned; and shall be further illustrated by other examples. Love, for example, in its infancy, rousing the imagination, prompts the heart to display itself in figurative language, and in similes:

Troilus. Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne’s love,
What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?
Her bed is India, there she lies, a pearl:
Between our Ilium, and where she resides,
Let it be call’d the wild and wandering flood;
Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar
Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.
Troilus and Cressida, act 1. sc. 1.

Again,

Come, gentle Night; come, loving black-brow’d Night!
Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him, and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heav’n so fine,
That all the world shall be in love with Night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
Romeo and Juliet, act 3. sc. 4.

The dread of a misfortune, however imminent, involving always some doubt and uncertainty, agitates the mind, and excites the imagination:

Wolsey.—— Nay, then, farewell;
I’ve touch’d the highest point of all my greatness;
And from that full meridian of my glory
I haste now to my setting. I shall fall,
Like a bright exhalation in the evening,
And no man see me more.
Henry VIII. act 3. sc. 4.

But it will be a better illustration of the present head, to give examples where comparisons are improperly introduced. I have had already occasion to observe, that similes are not the language of a man in his ordinary state of mind, going about the common affairs of life. For that reason, the following speech of a gardiner to his servants, is extremely improper.

Go bind thou up yon dangling apricocks
Which, like unruly children, make their sire
Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight:
Give some supportance to the bending twigs.
Go thou, and like an executioner,
Cut off the heads of too-fast-growing sprays,
That look too lofty in our commonwealth:
All must be even in our government.
Richard II. act 3. sc. 7.

The fertility of Shakespear’s vein betrays him frequently into this error. There is the same impropriety in another simile of his:

Hero. Good Margaret, run thee into the parlour;
There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice;
Whisper her ear, and tell her, I and Ursula
Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse
Is all of her; say, that thou overheard’st us:
And bid her steal into the pleached bower,
Where honeysuckles, ripen’d by the sun,
Forbid the sun to enter; like to favourites,
Made proud by princes, that advance their pride
Against that power that bred it.
Much ado about nothing, act 3. sc. 1.

Rooted grief, deep anguish, terror, remorse, despair, and all the severe dispiriting passions, are declared enemies, perhaps not to figurative language in general, but undoubtedly to the pomp and solemnity of comparison. Upon this account the simile pronounced by young Rutland under terror of death from an inveterate enemy, and praying mercy, is unnatural:

So looks the pent-up lion o’er the wretch
That trembles under his devouring paws;
And so he walks insulting o’er his prey,
And so he comes to rend his limbs asunder.
Ah, gentle Clifford, kill me with thy sword,
And not with such a cruel threat’ning look.
Third part Henry VI. act 1. sc. 5.

Nothing appears more out of place, or more aukwardly introduced, than the following simile.

Lucia.————Farewell, my Portius,
Farewell, though death is in the word, for-ever!

Portius. Stay, Lucia, stay; what dost thou say, for-ever?

Lucia. Have I not sworn? If, Portius, thy success
Must throw thy brother on his fate, farewell:
Oh, how shall I repeat the word for-ever!

Portius. Thus, o’er the dying lamp th’ unsteady flame
Hangs quivering on a point, leaps off by fits,
And falls again, as loath to quit its hold.
—— Thou must not go, my soul still hovers o’er thee,
And can’t get loose.
Cato, act 3. sc. 2.

Nor doth the simile which closes the first act of the same tragedy, make its appearance with a much better grace; the situation there represented, being too dispiriting for a simile. A simile is improper for one who dreads the discovery of a secret machination.

Zara. The mute not yet return’d! Ha! $1’the King,
The King that parted hence! frowning he went;
His eyes like meteors roll’d, then darted down
Their red and angry beams; as if his sight
Would, like the raging Dog-star, scorch the earth,
And kindle ruin in its course.
Mourning Bride, act 5. sc. 3.

A man spent and dispirited after losing a battle, is not disposed to heighten or illustrate his discourse by similes:

York. With this we charg’d again; but out! alas,
We bodg’d again; as I have seen a swan
With bootless labour swim against the tide,
And spend her strength with over-matching waves.
Ah! hark, the fatal followers do pursue.
And I am faint and cannot fly their fury.
The sands are number’d that make up my life;
Here must I stay, and here my life must end.
Third part Henry VI. act 1. sc. 6.

Far less is a man disposed to similes who is not only defeated in a pitch’d battle, but lies at the point of death mortally wounded.

Warwick.———— My mangled body shews,
My blood, my want of strength, my sick heart shews,
That I must yield my body to the earth,
And, by my fall, the conquest to my foe.
Thus yields the cedar to the ax’s edge,
Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle;
Under whose shade the ramping lion slept,
Whose top-branch overpeer’d Jove’s spreading tree,
And kept low shrubs from winter’s pow’rful wind.
Third part Henry VI. act 5. sc. 3.

Queen Katharine, deserted by the King and in the deepest affliction upon her divorce, could not be disposed to any sallies of imagination: and for that reason, the following simile, however beautiful in the mouth of a spectator, is scarce proper in her own.

I am the most unhappy woman living,
Shipwreck’d upon a kingdom, where no pity,
No friends, no hope! no kindred weep for me!
Almost no grave allowed me! like the lily,
That once was mistress of the field, and flourish’d,
I’ll hang my head and perish.
King Henry VIII. act 3. sc. 1.

Similes thus unseasonably introduced, are finely ridiculed in the Rehearsal:

Bayes. Now here she must make a simile.

Smith. Where’s the necessity of that, Mr Bayes?

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.

Meanwhile the troops beneath Patroculus’ care,
Invade the Trojans, and commence the war.
As wasps, provok’d by children in their play,
Pour from their mansions by the broad high-way,
In swarms the guiltless traveller engage,
Whet all their stings, and call forth all their rage;
All rise in arms, and with a general cry
Assert their waxen domes, and buzzing progeny:
Thus from the tents the fervent legion swarms,
So loud their clamours, and so keen their arms.
Iliad xvi. 312.

So burns the vengeful hornet (soul all o’er)
Repuls’d in vain, and thirsty still of gore;
(Bold son of air and heat) on angry wings
Untam’d, untir’d, he turns, attacks and stings.
Fir’d with like ardour fierce Atrides flew,
And sent his soul with ev’ry lance he threw.
Iliad xvii. 642.

Instant ardentes Tyrii: pars ducere muros,
Molirique arcem, er manibus subvolvere saxa;
Pars aptare locum tecto, et concludere sulco.
Jura magistratusque legunt, sanctumque senatum.
Hic portus alii effodiunt: hic alta theatris
Fundamenta locant alii, immanesque columnas
Rupibus excidunt, scenis decora alta futuris.
Quails apes æstate nova per florea rura
Exercet sub sole labor, cum gentis adultos
Educunt fœtus, aut cum liquentia mella
Stipant, et dulci distendunt nectare cellas,
Aut onera accipiunt venientum, aut agmine facto
Ignavum fucos pecus a præsepibus arcent.
Fervet opus, redolentque thymo fragrantia mella.
Æneid i. 427.

To describe bees gathering honey as resembling the builders of Carthage, would have a much better effect.

Tum vero Teucri incumbunt, et littore celsas
Deducunt toto naves: natat uncta carina;
Frondentesque ferunt remos, et robora sylvis
Infabricata, fugæ studio.
Migrantes cernas, totaque ex urbe ruentes.
Ac veluti ingentem formicæ farris acervum
Cum populant, hyemis memores, tectoque reponunt:
It nigrum campis agmen, prædamque per herbas
Convectant calle angusto: pars grandia trudunt
Obnixæ frumenta humeris: pars agmina cogunt,
Castigantque moras: opere omnis semita fervet.
Æneid. iv. 397.

The following simile has not any one beauty to recommend it. The subject is Amata the wife of King Latinus.

Tum vero infelix, ingentibus excita monstris,
Immensam sine more furit lymphata per urbem:
Ceu quondam torto volitans sub verbere turbo,
Quem pueri magno in gyro vacua atria circum
Intenti ludo exercent. Ille actus habena
Curvatis fertur spatiis: stupet inscia turba,
Impubesque manus, mirata volubile buxum:
Dant animos plagæ. Non cursu segnior illo
Per medias urbes agitur, populosque feroces.
Æneid. vii. 376.

This simile seems to border upon the burlesque.

An error opposite to the former, is the introducing a resembling image, so elevated or great as to bear no proportion to the principal subject. The remarkable disparity betwixt them, being the most striking circumstance, seizes the mind, and never fails to depress the principal subject by contrast, instead of raising it by resemblance: and if the disparity be exceeding great, the simile takes on an air of burlesque; nothing being more ridiculous than to force an object out of its proper rank in nature, by equalling it with one greatly superior or greatly inferior. This will be evident from the following comparisons.

Fervet opus, redolentque thymo fragrantia mella.
Ac veluti lentis Cyclopes fulmina massis
Cum properant: alii taurinis follibus auras
Accipiunt, redduntque: alii stridentia tingunt
Æra lacu: gemit impositis incudibus Ætna:
Illi inter sese magna vi brachia tollunt
In numerum; versantque tenaci forcipe ferrum.
Non aliter (si parva licet componere magnis)
Cecropias innatus apes amor urget habendi,
Munere quamque suo. Grandævis oppida curæ,
Et munire favos, et Dædala fingere tecta.
At fessæ multâ referunt se necte minores,
Crura thymo plenæ: pascuntur et arbuta passim,
Et glaucas salices, casiamque crocumque rubentem,
Et pinguem tiliam, et ferrugineos hyacinthos.
Omnibus una quies operum, labor omnibus unus.
Georgic. iv. 169.

Tum Bitian ardentem oculis animisque frementem;
Non jaculo, neque enim jaculo vitam ille dedisset;
Sed magnum stridens contorta falarica venit
Fulminis acta modo, quam nec duo taurea terga,
Nec duplici squama lorica fidelis et auro
Sustinuit: collapsa ruunt immania membra:
Dat tellus gemitum, et clypeum super intonat ingens.
Qualis in Euboico Baiarum littore quondam
Saxea pila cadit, magnis quam molibus ante
Constructam jaciunt ponto: sic illa ruinam
Prona trahit, penitusque vadis illisa recumbit:
Miscent se maria, et nigræ attolluntur arenæ:
Tum sonitu Prochyta alta tremit, durumque cubile
Inarime Jovis imperiis imposta Typhoëo.
Æneid. ix. 703.

Loud as a bull makes hill and valley ring,
So roar’d the lock when it releas’d the spring.
Odyssey xxi. 51.

Such a simile upon the simplest of all actions, that of opening a lock, is pure burlesque.

A writer of delicacy will avoid drawing his comparisons from any image that is nauseous, ugly, or remarkably disagreeable: for however strong the resemblance may be, more will be lost than gained by such comparison. Therefore I cannot help condemning, though with some reluctance, the following simile, or rather metaphor.

O thou fond many! with what loud applause
Did’st thou beat heav’n with blessing Bolingbroke
Before he was what thou wou’dst have him be?
And now being trimm’d up in thine own desires,
Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him,
That thou provok’st thyself to cast him up.
And so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge
Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard,
And now thou wou’dst eat thy dead vomit up,
And howl’st to find it.
Second Part Henry IV. act 1. sc. 6.

The strongest objection that can lie against a comparison, is, that it consists in words only, not in sense. Such false coin, or bastard wit, does extremely well in burlesque; but is far below the dignity of the epic, or of any serious composition:

The noble sister of Poplicola,
The moon of Rome; chaste as the isicle
That’s curdled by the frost from purest snow,
And hangs on Dian’s temple.
Coriolanus, act 5. sc. 3.

There is evidently no resemblance betwixt an isicle and a woman, chaste or unchaste. But chastity is cold in a metaphorical sense, and an isicle is cold in a proper sense; and this verbal resemblance, in the hurry and glow of composing, has been thought a sufficient foundation for the simile. Such phantom similes are mere witticisms, which ought to have no quarter, except where purposely introduced to provoke laughter. Lucian, in his dissertation upon history, talking of a certain author, makes the following comparison, which is verbal merely.

This author’s descriptions are so cold, that they surpass the Caspian snow, and all the ice of the north.

Virgil has not escaped this puerility:

—— Galathæa thymo mihi dulcior Hyblæ.
Bucol. vii. 37.

—— Ego Sardois videar tibi amarior herbis.
Ibid. 41.

Gallo, cujus amor tantum mihi crescit in horas,
Quantum vere novo viridis se subjicit alnus.
Buccol. x. 73.

Nor Tasso, in his Aminta:

Picciola e’ l’ape, e fa col picciol morso
Pur gravi, e pur moleste le ferite;
Ma, qual cosa é più picciola d’amore,
Se in ogni breve spatio entra, e s’asconde
In ogni breve spatio? hor, sotto a l’ombra
De le palpebre, hor trà minuti rivi
D’un biondo crine, hor dentro le pozzette,
Che forma un dolce riso in bella guancia;
E pur fá tanto grandi, e si mortali,
E cosi immedicabili le piaghe.
Act 2. sc. 1.

Nor Boileau, the chastest of all writers; and that even in his art of poetry:

Ainsi tel autrefois, qu’on vit avec Faret
Charbonner de ses vers les murs d’un cabaret,
S’en va mal a’ propos, d’une voix insolente,
Chanter du peuple He’breu la suite triomphante,
Et poursuivant Moise au travers des déserts,
Court avec Pharaon se noyer dans les mers.
Chant. 1. l. 21.

—— But for their spirits and souls
This word rebellion had froze them up
As fish are in a pond.
Second Part Henry IV. act 1. sc. 3.

Queen. The pretty vaulting sea refus’d to drown me;
Knowing, that thou wou’dst have me drown’d on shore
With tears as salt as sea, through thy unkindness.
Second Part Henry VI. act 3. sc. 6.

Here there is no manner of resemblance but in the word drown; for there is no real resemblance betwixt being drown’d at sea, and dying of grief at land. But perhaps this sort of tinsel wit, may have a propriety in it, when used to express an affected, not a real, passion, which was the Queen’s case.

Pope has several similes of the same stamp. I shall transcribe one or two from the Essay on Man, the gravest and most instructive of all his performances.

And hence one master-passion in the breast,
Like Aaron’s serpent, swallows up the rest.
Epist. 2. l. 131.

And again, talking of this same ruling or master passion.

Nature its mother, Habit is its nurse;
Wit, spirit, faculties, but make it worse;
Reason itself but gives it edge and pow’r;
As heav’n’s blest beam turns vinegar more sowr.
Ibid. l. 145.

Lord Bolingbroke, speaking of historians:

Where their sincerity as to fact is doubtful, we strike out truth by the confrontation of different accounts; as we strike out sparks of fire by the collision of flints and steel.

Let us vary the phrase a very little, and there will not remain a shadow of resemblance. Thus, for example:

We discover truth by the confrontation of different accounts; as we strike out sparks of fire by the collision of flints and steel.

Racine makes Pyrrhus say to Andromaque,

Vaincu, chargé de fers, de regrets consumé,
Brulé de plus de feux que je n’en allumai,
Helas! fus-je jamais si cruel que vous l’etés?

And Orestes, in the same strain:

Que les Scythes sont moins cruels qu’ Hermione.

Similes of this kind put one in mind of a ludicrous French song:

Je croyois Janneton
Aussi douce que belle:
Je croyois Janneton
Plus douce qu’un mouton;
Helas! helas!
Elle est cent fois, mille fois, plus cruelle
Que n’est le tigre aux bois.

Again,

Helas! l’amour m’a pris,
Comme le chat fait la souris.

A vulgar Irish ballad begins thus:

I have as much love in store
As there’s apples in Portmore.

Where the subject is burlesque or ludicrous, such similes are far from being improper. Horace says pleasantly,

Quanquam tu levior cortice.
L. 3. ode 9.

And Shakespear,

In breaking oaths he’s stronger than Hercules.

And this leads me to observe, that beside the foregoing comparisons, which are all serious, there is a species, the end and purpose of which is to excite gaiety or mirth. Take the following examples.

Falstaff, speaking to his page:

I do here walk before thee, like a sow that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one.

Second Part Henry IV. act 1. sc. 4.

I think he is not a pick-purse, nor a horse-stealer; but for his verity in love, I do think him as concave as a cover’d goblet, or a worm-eaten nut.

As you like it, act 3. sc. 10.

This sword a dagger had his page,
That was but little for his age;
And therefore waited on him so
As dwarfs upon knights-errant do.
Hudibras, canto 1.

Desciption of Hudibras’s horse:

He was well stay’d, and in his gait
Preserv’d a grave, majestic state.
At spur or switch no more he skipt,
Or mended pace, than Spaniard whipt:
And yet so fiery he would bound,
As if he griev’d to touch the ground:
That Cæsar’s horse, who, as fame goes,
Had corns upon his feet and toes,
Was not by half so tender hooft,
Nor trod upon the ground so soft.
And as that beast would kneel and stoop,
(Some write) to take his rider up;
So Hudibras his (’tis well known)
Would often do, to set him down.
Canto 1.

Honour is, like a widow, won
With brisk attempt and putting on,
With entering manfully, and urging;
Not slow approaches, like a virgin.
Canto 1.

The sun had long since in the lap
Of Thetis taken out his nap;
And, like a lobster boil’d, the morn
From black to red began to turn.
Part 2. canto 2.

Books, like men, their authors, have but one way of coming into the world; but there are ten thousand to go out of it, and return no more.

Tale of a Tub.

And in this the world may perceive the difference between the integrity of a generous author, and that of a common friend. The latter is observed to adhere close in prosperity, but on the decline of fortune, to drop suddenly off: whereas the generous author, just on the contrary, finds his hero on the dunghill, from thence by gradual steps raises him to a throne, and then immediately withdraws, expecting not so much as thanks for his pains.

Tale of a Tub.

The most accomplish’d way of using books at present is, to serve them as some do lords, learn their titles, and then brag of their acquaintance.

Tale of a Tub.

Box’d in a chair, the beau impatient sits,
While spouts run clatt’ring o’er the roof by fits;
And ever and anon with frightful din
The leather sounds; he trembles from within.
So when Troy chairmen bore the wooden steed,
Pregnant with Greeks, impatient to be freed,
(Those bully Greeks, who, as the moderns do,
Instead of paying chairmen, run them through),
Laocoon struck the outside with his spear,
And each imprison’d hero quak’d for fear.
Description of a city shower. Swift.

Clubs, diamonds, hearts, in wild disorder seen,
With throngs promiscuous strow the level green.
Thus when dispers’d a routed army runs,
Of Asia’s troops, and Afric’s sable sons,
With like confusion different nations fly,
Of various habit, and of various dye,
The pierc’d battalions disunited, fall
In heaps on heaps; one fate o’erwhelms them all.
Rape of the Lock, canto 3.

He does not consider, that sincerity in love is as much out of fashion as sweet snuff; no body takes it now.

Careless Husband.

Lady Easy. My dear, I am afraid you have provoked her a little too far.

Sir Charles. O! Not at all. You shall see, I’ll sweeten her, and she’ll cool like a dish of tea.

Ibid.

CHAP. XX.

FIGURES.

THe reader must not expect to find here a complete list of the different tropes and figures that have been carefully noted by ancient critics and grammarians. Tropes and figures have indeed been multiplied with so little reserve, as to make it no easy matter to distinguish them from plain language. A discovery almost accidental, made me think of giving them a place in this work: I found that the most important of them depend on principles formerly explained; and I was glad of an opportunity to show the extensive influence of these principles. Confining myself therefore to figures that answer this purpose, I am luckily freed from much trash; without dropping, so far as I remember, any figure that merits a proper name. And I begin with Prosopopœia or personification, which is justly intitled to the first place.

SECT. I.

PERSONIFICATION.

THis figure, which gives life to things inanimate, is so bold a delusion as to require, one should imagine, very peculiar circumstances for operating the effect. And yet, in the language of poetry, we find variety of expressions, which, though commonly reduced to this figure, are used without ceremony or any sort of preparation. I give, for example, the following expressions. Thirsty ground, hungry church-yard, furious dart, angry ocean. The epithets here, in their proper meaning, are attributes of sensible beings. What is the effect of such epithets, when apply’d to things inanimate? Do they raise in the mind of the reader a perception of sensibility? Do they make him conceive the ground, the church-yard, the dart, the ocean, to be endued with animal functions? This is a curious inquiry; and whether so or not, it cannot be declined in handling the present subject.

One thing is certain, that the mind is prone to bestow sensibility upon things inanimate, where that violent effect is necessary to gratify passion. This is one instance, among many, of the power of passion to adjust our opinions and belief to its gratification[12]. I give the following examples. Antony, mourning over the body of Cæsar, murdered in the senate-house, vents his passion in the following words.

Antony. O pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers.
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Julius Cæsar, act 3. sc. 4.

Here Antony must have been impressed with some sort of notion, that the body of Cæsar was listening to him, without which the speech would be foolish and absurd. Nor will it appear strange, after what is said in the chapter above cited, that passion should have such power over the mind of man. Another example of the same kind is, where the earth, as a common mother, is animated to give refuge against a father’s unkindness.

Almeria. O Earth, behold, I kneel upon thy bosom,
And bend my flowing eyes to stream upon
Thy face, imploring thee that thou wilt yield;
Open thy bowels of compassion, take
Into thy womb the last and most forlorn
Of all thy race. Hear me thou, common parent;
—— I have no parent else.—— Be thou a mother,
And step between me and the curse of him,
Who was—who was, but is no more a father;
But brands my innocence with horrid crimes;
And for the tender names of child and daughter,
Now calls me murderer and parricide.
Mourning Bride, act. 4. sc. 7.

Plaintive passions are extremely solicitous for vent. A soliloquy commonly answers the purpose. But when a passion swells high, it is not satisfied with so slight a gratification: it must have a person to complain to; and if none be found, it will animate things devoid of sense. Thus Philoctetes complains to the rocks and promontories of the isle of Lemnos[13]; and Alcestes dying, invokes the sun, the light of day, the clouds, the earth, her husband’s palace, &c.[14]. Plaintive passions carry the mind still farther. Among the many principles that connect individuals in society, one is remarkable: it is that principle which makes us earnestly wish, that others should enter into our concerns and think and feel as we do[15]. This social principle, when inflamed by a plaintive passion, will, for want of a more complete gratification, prompt the mind to give life even to things inanimate. Moschus, lamenting the death of Bion, conceives that the birds, the fountains, the trees, lament with him. The shepherd, who in Virgil bewails the death of Daphnis, expresseth himself thus:

Daphni, tuum Pœnos etiam ingemuisse leones
Interitum, montesque feri sylvæque loquuntur.
Eclogue v. 27.

Again,

Illum etiam lauri, illum etiam flevere myricæ.
Pinifer illum etiam sola sub rupe jacentem
Mænalus, et gelidi fleverunt saxa Lycæi.
Eclogue x. 13.

Again,

Ho visto al pianto mio
Responder per pietate i sassi e l’onde;
E sospirar le fronde
Ho visto al pianto mio.
Ma non ho visto mai,
Ne spero di vedere
Compassion ne la crudele, e bella.
Aminta di Tasso, act 1. sc. 2.

Earl Rivers carried to execution, says,

O Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison,
Fatal and ominous to Noble peers!
Within the guilty closure of thy walls
Richard the Second, here, was hack’d to death;
And, for more slander to thy dismal seat,
We give to thee our guiltless blood to drink.
Richard III, act 3. sc. 4.

King Richard having got intelligence of Bolingbroke’s invasion, says, upon his landing in England from his Irish expedition, in a mixture of joy and resentment,

—— I weep for joy
To stand upon my kingdom once again.
Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,
Though rebels wound thee with their horses hoofs.
As a long parted mother with her child
Plays fondly with her tears, and smiles in meeting;
So weeping, smiling, greet I thee my earth,
And do thee favour with my royal hands.
Feed not thy sovereign’s foe, my gentle earth,
Nor with thy sweets comfort his rav’nous sense:
But let thy spiders that suck up thy venom,
And heavy-gaited toads, lie in their way;
Doing annoyance to the treach’rous feet,
Which with usurping steps do trample thee.
Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies;
And, when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,
Guard it, I pr’ythee, with a lurking adder;
Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch
Throw death upon thy sovereign’s enemies.
Mock not my senseless conjuration, Lords:
This earth shall have a feeling; and these stones
Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king
Shall faulter under foul rebellious arms.
Richard II. act 3. sc. 2.

Among the ancients, it was customary after a long voyage to salute the natal soil. A long voyage, was of old a greater enterprise than at present: the safe return to one’s country after much fatigue and danger, was a circumstance extremely delightful; and it was natural to give the natal soil a temporary life, in order to sympathise with the traveller. See an example, Agamemnon of Æschilus, act 3. in the beginning. Regret for leaving a place one has been accustomed to has the same effect[16].

Terror produceth the same effect. A man, to gratify this passion, extends it to every thing around, even to things inanimate:

Speaking of Polyphemus,

Clamorem immensum tollit, quo pontus et omnes
Intremuere undæ penitusque exterrita tellus
Italiæ.
Æneid. iii. 672.

—— As when old Ocean roars,
And heaves huge surges to the trembling shores.
Iliad ii. 249.

And thund’ring footsteps shake the sounding shore.
Iliad ii. 549.

Then with a voice that shook the vaulted skies.
Iliad v. 431.

Racine, in the tragedy of Phedra, describing the sea-monster that destroy’d Hippolitus, conceives the sea itself to be inspired with terror as well as the spectators; or more accurately transfers from the spectators their terror to the sea, with which they were connected:

Le flot qui l’apporta recule epouvanté.

A man also naturally communicates his joy to all objects around, animate or inanimate:

—— 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 Araby 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.
Paradise Lost, b. 4.

I have been profuse of examples, to show what power many passions have to animate their objects. In all the foregoing examples, the personification, if I mistake not, is so complete as to be derived from an actual conviction, momentary indeed, of life and intelligence. But it is evident from numberless instances, that personification is not always so complete. Personification is a common figure in descriptive poetry, understood to be the language of the writer, and not of any of his personages in a fit of passion. In this case, it seldom or never comes up to a conviction, even momentary, of life and intelligence. I give the following examples.

First in his east the glorious lamp was seen,
Regent of day, and all th’ horizon round
Invested with bright rays; jocund to run
His longitude through heav’n’s high road: the gray
Dawn, and the Pleiades before him danc’d,
Shedding sweet influence. Less bright the moon
But opposite, in levell’d west was set
His mirror, with full face borrowing her light
From him; for other light she needed none.
Paradise Lost, b. 7. l. 370.[17]

Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops.
Romeo and Juliet, act 3. sc. 7.

But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill.
Hamlet, act 1. sc. 1.

It may, I presume, be taken for granted, that, in the foregoing instances, the personification, either with the poet or his reader, amounts not to a conviction of intelligence; nor that the sun, the moon, the day, the morn, are here understood to be sensible beings. What then is the nature of this personification? Upon considering the matter attentively, I discover that this species of personification must be referred to the imagination. The inanimate object is imagined to be a sensible being, but without any conviction, even for a moment, that it really is so. Ideas or fictions of imagination have power to raise emotions in the mind[18]; and when any thing inanimate is, in imagination, supposed to be a sensible being, it makes by that means a greater figure than when an idea is formed of it according to truth. The elevation however in this case, is far from being so great as when the personification arises to an actual conviction; and therefore must be considered as of a lower or inferior sort. Thus personification is of two kinds. The first or nobler, may be termed passionate personification: the other, or more humble, descriptive personification; because seldom or never is personification in a description carried the length of conviction.

The imagination is so lively and active, that its images are raised with very little effort; and this justifies the frequent use of descriptive personification. This figure abounds in Milton’s Allegro and Penseroso.

Abstract and general terms, as well as particular objects, are often necessary in poetry. Such terms however are not well adapted to poetry, because they suggest not any image to the mind: I can readily form an image of Alexander or Achilles in wrath; but I cannot form an image of wrath in the abstract, or of wrath independent of a person. Upon that account, in works addressed to the imagination, abstract terms are frequently personified. But this personification never goes farther than the imagination.

Sed mihi vel Tellus optem prius ima dehiscat;
Vel pater omnipotens adigat me fulmine ad umbras,
Pallentes umbras Erebi, noctemque profundam,
Ante pudor quam te violo, aut tua jura resolvo.
Æneid. 4. l. 24.

Thus, to explain the effects of slander, it is imagined to be a voluntary agent:

—— No, ’tis Slander;
Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose tongue
Out venoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath
Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie
All corners of the world, kings, queens, and states,
Maids, matrons: nay, the secrets of the grave
This viperous Slander enters.
Shakespear, Cymbeline, act. 3. sc. 4.

As also human passions. Take the following example.

——For Pleasure and Revenge
Have ears more deaf than adders, to the voice
Of any true decision.
Troilus and Cressida, act 2. sc. 4.

Virgil explains fame and its effects by a still greater variety of action[19]. And Shakespear personifies death and its operations in a manner extremely fanciful:

—— Within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king,
Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp;
Allowing him a breath, a little scene
To monarchize, be fear’d, and kill with looks;
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if his flesh, which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable; and humour’d thus,
Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores through his castle-walls, and farewell king!
Richard II. act 3. sc. 4.

Not less successfully is life and action given even to sleep:

K. Henry. How many thousands of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O gentle Sleep,
Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eye-lids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, Sleep, ly’st thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And hush’d with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber;
Than in the perfum’d chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lull’d with sounds of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god, why ly’st thou with the vile
In loathsome beds, and leav’st the kingly couch,
A watch-case to a common larum-bell?
Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast,
Seal up the ship-boy’s eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge;
And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deaf’ning clamours in the slipp’ry shrouds,
That, with the hurly, Death itself awakes:
Can’st thou, O partial Sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;
And, in the calmest and the stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then, happy low! lie down;
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
Second Part Henry IV. act 3. sc. 1.

I shall add one example more, to show that descriptive personification may be used with propriety, even where the purpose of the discourse is instruction merely:

Oh! let the steps of youth be cautious,
How they advance into a dangerous world;
Our duty only can conduct us safe:
Our passions are seducers: but of all,
The strongest Love: he first approaches us,
In childish play, wantoning in our walks:
If heedlessly we wander after him,
As he will pick out all the dancing way,
We’re lost, and hardly to return again.
We should take warning: he is painted blind,
To show us, if we fondly follow him,
The precipices we may fall into.
Therefore let Virtue take him by the hand:
Directed so, he leads to certain joy.
Southern.

Hitherto our progress has been upon firm ground. Whether we shall be so lucky in the remaining part of the journey, seems doubtful. For after acquiring some knowledge of the subject, when we now look back to the expressions mentioned in the beginning, thirsty ground, furious dart, and such like, it seems as difficult as at first to say what sort of personification it is. Such expressions evidently raise not the slighted conviction of sensibility. Nor do I think they amount to descriptive personification: in the expressions mentioned, we do not so much as figure the ground or the dart to be animated; and if so, they cannot at all come under the present subject. And to show this more clearly, I shall endeavour to explain what effect such expressions have naturally upon the mind. In the expression angry ocean, for example, do we not tacitly compare the ocean in a storm, to a man in wrath? It is by this tacit comparison, that the expression acquires a force or elevation, beyond what is found when an epithet is used proper to the object: for I have had occasion to show[20], that a thing inanimate acquires a certain elevation by being compared to a sensible being. And this very comparison is itself a demonstration, that there is no personification in such expressions. For, by the very nature of a comparison, the things compared are kept distinct, and the native appearance of each is preserved. It will be shown afterward, that expressions of this kind belong to another figure, which I term a figure of speech, and which employs the seventh section of the present chapter.

Though thus in general we can precisely distinguish descriptive personification from what is merely a figure of speech, it is however often difficult to say, with respect to some expressions, whether they are of the one kind or of the other. Take the following instances.

The moon shines bright: in such a night as this,
When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,
And they did make no noise; in such a night,
Troilus methinks mounted the Trojan wall,
And sigh’d his soul towards the Grecian tents
Where Cressid lay that night.
Merchant of Venice, act 5. sc. 1.

—— I have seen
Th’ ambitious ocean swell, and rage, and foam,
To be exalted with the threat’ning clouds.
Julius Cæsar, act 1. sc. 6.

Jane Shore. My form, alas! has long forgot to please;
The scene of beauty and delight is chang’d,
No roses bloom upon my fading cheek,
No laughing graces wanton in my eyes;
But haggard Grief, lean-looking sallow Care,
And pining Discontent, a rueful train,
Dwell on my brow, all hideous and forlorn.
Jane Shore, act 1. sc. 2.

With respect to these and numberless other instances of the same kind, whether they be examples of personification or of a figure of speech merely, seems to be an arbitrary question. They will be ranged under the former class by those only who are endued with a sprightly imagination. Nor will the judgement even of the same person be steady: it will vary with the present state of the spirits, lively or composed.

Having thus at large explained the present figure, its different kinds, and the principles from whence derived; what comes next in order is to ascertain its proper province, by showing in what cases it is suitable, in what unsuitable. I begin with observing, upon passionate personification, that this figure is not promoted by every passion indifferently. All dispiriting passions are averse to it. Remorse, in particular, is too serious and severe, to be gratified by a phantom of the mind. I cannot therefore approve the following speech of Enobarbus, who had deserted his master Antony.

Be witness to me, O thou blessed moon,
When men revolted shall upon record
Bear hateful memory, poor Enobarbus did
Before thy face repent————
Oh sovereign mistress of true melancholy,
The poisonous damp of night dispunge upon me,
That life, a very rebel to my will,
May hang no longer on me.
Antony and Cleopatra, act 4. sc. 7.

If this can be justified, it must be upon the Heathen system of theology, which converted into deities the sun, moon, and stars.

Secondly, After a passionate personification is properly introduced, it ought to be confined strictly to its proper province, that of gratifying the passion; and no sentiment nor action ought to be exerted by the animated object, but what answers that purpose. Personification is at any rate a bold figure, and ought to be employed with great reserve. The passion of love, for example, in a plaintive tone, may give a momentary life to woods and rocks, that the lover may vent his distress to them: but no passion will support a conviction so far stretched, as that these woods and rocks should be living witnesses to report the distress to others:

Ch’i’ t’ami piu de la mia vita,
Se tu nol fai, crudele,
Chiedilo a queste selve,
Che te’l diranno, et te’l diran con esso
Le fere loro e i duri sterpi, e i sassi
Di questi alpestri monti,
Ch’i’ ho si spesse volte
Inteneriti al suon de’ miei lamenti.
Pastor fido, act 3. sc. 3.

No lover who is not crazed will utter such a sentiment: it is plainly the operation of the writer, indulging his imagination without regard to nature. The same observation is applicable to the following passage.

In winter’s tedious nights sit by the fire
With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales
Of woful ages, long ago betid:
And ere thou bid goodnight, to quiet their grief,
Tell them the lamentable fall of me,
And send the hearers weeping to their beds.
For why! the senseless brands will sympathise
The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,
And in compassion weep the fire out.
Richard II. act 5. sc. 1.

One must read this passage very seriously to avoid laughing. The following passage is quite extravagant: the different parts of the human body are too intimately connected with self, to be personified by the power of any passion; and after converting such a part into a sensible being, it is still worse to make it be conceived as rising in rebellion against self.

Cleopatra. Haste, bare my arm, and rouze the serpent’s fury.
Coward flesh————
Would’st thou conspire with Cæsar, to betray me,
As thou wert none of mine? I’ll force thee to’t.
Dryden, All for Love, act 5.

Next comes descriptive personification; upon which I must observe in general, that it ought to be cautiously used. A personage in a tragedy, agitated by a strong passion, deals in strong sentiments; and the reader, catching fire by sympathy, relishes the boldest personifications. But a writer, even in the most lively description, ought to take a lower flight, and content himself with such easy personifications as agree with the tone of mind inspired by the description. In plain narrative, again, the mind, serious and sedate, rejects personification altogether. Strada, in his history of the Belgic wars, has the following passage, which, by a strained elevation above the tone of the subject, deviates into burlesk. “Vix descenderat a prætoria navi Cæsar; cum fœda illico exorta in portu tempestas, classem impetu disjecit, prætoriam hausit: quasi non vecturam amplius Cæsarem, Cæsarisque fortunam[21].” Neither do I approve, in Shakespear, the speech of King John, gravely exhorting the citizens of Angiers to a surrender; though a tragic writer has much greater latitude than a historian. Take the following specimen of this speech.

The cannons have their bowels full of wrath;
And ready mounted are they to spit forth
Their iron-indignation ’gainst your walls.
Act 2. sc. 3.

Secondly, If extraordinary marks of respect put upon a person of the lowest rank be ridiculous, not less so is the personification of a mean object. This rule chiefly regards descriptive personification: for an object can hardly be mean that is the cause of a violent passion; in that circumstance, at least, it must be an object of importance. With respect to this point, it would be in vain to set limits to personification: taste is the only rule. A poet of superior genius hath more than others the command of this figure; because he hath more than others the power of inflaming the mind. Homer appears not extravagant in animating his darts and arrows: nor Thomson in animating the seasons, the winds, the rains, the dews. He even ventures to animate the diamond, and doth it with propriety.

—— That polish’d bright
And all its native lustre let abroad,
Dares, as it sparkles on the fair-one’s breast,
With vain ambition emulate her eyes.

But there are things familiar and base, to which personification cannot descend. In a composed state of mind, to animate a lump of matter even in the most rapid flight of fancy, degenerates into burlesk.

How now? What noise? that spirit’s possess’d with haste,
That wounds th’ unresisting postern with these strokes.
Shakespear, Measure for Measure, act 4. sc. 6.

The following little better:

—— Or from the shore
The plovers when to scatter o’er the heath,
And sing their wild notes to the list’ning waste.
Thomson, Spring, l. 23.

Speaking of a man’s hand cut off in battle:

Te decisa suum, Laride, dextera quærit:
Semianimesque micant digiti; ferrumque retractant.
Æneid. x. 395.

The personification here of a hand is insufferable, especially in a plain narration; not to mention that such a trivial incident is too minutely described.

The same observation is applicable to abstract terms, which ought not to be animated unless they have some natural dignity. Thomson, in this article, is quite licentious. Witness the following instances out of many.

O vale of bliss! O softly swelling hills!
On which the power of cultivation lies,
And joys to see the wonders of his toil.
Summer, l. 1423.

Then sated Hunger bids his brother Thirst
Produce the mighty bowl:
Nor wanting is the brown October, drawn
Mature and perfect, from his dark retreat
Of thirty years; and now his honest front
Flames in the light refulgent.
Autumn, l. 516.

Thirdly, it is not sufficient to avoid improper subjects. Some preparation is necessary, in order to rouze the mind. The imagination refuses its aid, till it be warmed at least, if not inflamed. Yet Thomson, without the least ceremony or preparation, introduceth each season as a sensible being:

From brightening fields of æther fair disclos’d,
Child of the sun, refulgent Summer comes,
In pride of youth, and felt through Nature’s depth.
He comes attended by the sultry hours,
And ever-fanning breezes, on his way,
While from his ardent look, the turning Spring
Averts her blushful face, and earth and skies
All-smiling, to his hot dominion leaves.
Summer, l. 1.

See Winter comes, to rule the vary’d year,
Sullen and sad with all his rising train,
Vapours, and clouds, and storms.
Winter, l. 1.

This has violently the air of writing mechanically without taste. It is not natural, that the imagination of a writer should be so much heated at the very commencement; and, at any rate, he cannot expect such ductility in his readers: but if this practice can be justified by authority, Thomson has one of no mean note: Vida begins his first eclogue in the following words.

Dicite, vos Musæ, et juvenum memorate querelas;
Dicite; nam motas ipsas ad carmina cautes
Et requiesse suos perhibent vaga flumina cursus.

Even Shakespear is not always careful to prepare the mind for this bold figure. Take the following instance:

———————— Upon these taxations,
The clothiers all, not able to maintain
The many to them ’longing, have put off
The spinsters, carders, fullers, weavers; who,
Unfit for other life, compell’d by hunger
And lack of other means, in desp’rate manner
Daring th’ event to th’ teeth, are all in uproar,
And Danger serves among them.
Henry VIII. act 1. sc. 4.

Fourthly, Descriptive personification ought never to be carried farther than barely to animate the subject: and yet poets are not easily restrained from making this phantom of their own creating behave and act in every respect as if it were really a sensible being. By such licence we lose sight of the subject; and the description is rendered obscure or unintelligible, instead of being more lively and striking. In this view, the following passage, describing Cleopatra on shipboard, appears to me exceptionable.

The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,
Burnt on the water; the poop was beaten gold,
Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that
The winds were love sick with ’em.
Antony and Cleopatra, act 2. sc. 3.

Let the winds be personified; I make no objection. But to make them love-sick, is too far stretched; having no resemblance to any natural action of wind. In another passage, where Cleopatra is also the subject, the personification of the air is carried beyond all bounds:

—————————————— The city cast
Its people out upon her; and Antony
Inthron’d i’ th’ market-place, did sit alone,
Whistling to th’ air, which but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
And made a gap in nature.
Antony and Cleopatra, act 2. sc. 3.

The following personification of the earth or soil is not less wild.

She shall be dignify’d with this high honour
To bear my Lady’s train; lest the base earth
Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss;
And of so great a favour growing proud,
Disdain to root the summer swelling flower,
And make rough winter everlastingly.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona, act 2. sc. 7.

Shakespear, far from approving such intemperance of imagination, puts this speech in the mouth of a ranting lover. Neither can I relish what follows.

Omnia quæ, Phœbo quondam meditante, beatus
Audiit Eurotas, jussitque ediscere lauros,
Ille canit.
Virgil, Buc. vi. 82.

The chearfulness singly of a pastoral song, will scarce support personification in the lowest degree. But admitting, that a river gently flowing may be imagined a sensible being listening to a song, I cannot enter into the conceit of the river’s ordering his laurels to learn the song. Here all resemblance to any thing real is quite lost. This however is copied literally by one of our greatest poets; early indeed, before maturity of taste or judgement.

Thames heard the numbers as he flow’d along,
And bade his willows learn the moving song.
Pope’s Pastorals, past. 4. l. 13.

This author, in riper years, is guilty of a much greater deviation from the rule. Dullness may be imagined a deity or idol, to be worshipped by bad writers: but then some sort of disguise is requisite, some bastard virtue must be bestowed, to give this idol a plausible appearance. Yet in the Dunciad, dullness, without the least disguise, is made the object of worship. The mind rejects such a fiction as unnatural; for dullness is a defect, of which even the dullest mortal is ashamed:

Then he: great tamer of all human art, &c.
Book i. 163.

The following instance is stretched beyond all resemblance. It is bold to take a part or member of a living creature, and to bestow upon it life, volition, and action: after animating two such members, it is still bolder to make them envy each other; for this is wide of any resemblance to reality:

————————— De nostri baci
Meritamente sia giudice quella, &c.
Pastor Fido, act 2. sc. 1.

Fifthly, The enthusiasm of passion may have the effect to prolong passionate personification: but descriptive personification cannot be dispatched in too few words. A minute description dissolves the charm, and makes the attempt to personify appear ridiculous. Homer succeeds in animating his darts and arrows: but such personification spun out in a French translation, is mere burlesk:

Et la fléche en furie, avide de son sang,
Part, vole à lui, l’atteint, et lui perce le flanc.

Horace says happily, “Post equitem sedet atra Cura.” See how this thought degenerates by being divided, like the former, into a number of minute parts:

Un fou rempli d’erreurs, que le trouble accompagne
Et malade à la ville ainsi qu’à la campagne,
En vain monte à cheval pour tromper son ennui,
Le Chagrin monte en croupe et galope avec lui.

The following passage is, if possible, still more faulty.

Her fate is whisper’d by the gentle breeze,
And told in sighs to all the trembling trees;
The trembling trees, in ev’ry plain and wood,
Her fate remurmur to the silver flood;
The silver flood, so lately calm, appears
Swell’d with new passion, and o’erflows with tears;
The winds, and trees, and floods, her death deplore,
Daphne, our grief! our glory! now no more.
Pope’s Pastorals, iv. 61.

Let grief or love have the power to animate the winds, the trees, the floods, provided the figure be dispatched in a single expression. Even in that case, the figure seldom has a good effect; because grief or love of the pastoral kind, are causes rather too faint for so violent an effect as imagining the winds, trees, or floods, to be sensible beings. But when this figure is deliberately spread out with great regularity and accuracy through many lines, the reader, instead of relishing it, is struck with its ridiculous appearance.

SECT. II.

APOSTROPHE.

THIS figure and the former are derived from the same principle. If, to gratify a plaintive passion, we can bestow a momentary sensibility upon an inanimate object, it is not more difficult to bestow a momentary presence upon a sensible being who is absent.

Hinc Drepani me portus et illætabilis ora
Accipit. Hic, pelagi tot tempestatibus actus,
Heu! genitorem, omnis curæ casusque levamen,
Amitto Anchisen: hic me pater optime fessum
Deseris, heu! tantis nequiequam erepte periclis.
Nec vates Helenus, cum multa horrenda moneret,
Hos mihi prædixit luctus; non dira Celæno.
Æneid. iii. 707.

This figure is sometimes joined with the former: things inanimate, to qualify them for listening to a passionate expostulation, are not only personified, but also conceived to be present.