"are like swo smooth rocks seen from Branno of the "streams: thy arms like two white pillars in the "ball of the mighty Fingal." Fingal.

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 article above cited on the margin, and shall be here illustrated by examples. The first is a comparison built upon a resemblance so obvious as to make little or no impression. Speaking of the fallen angels searching for mines of gold:

A numerous brigade hasten'd: as when bands
Of pioneers with spade and pickaxe arm'd,
Forerun the royal camp to trench a field
Or cast a rampart.

Milton.

A third general observation is, That abstract terms can never be the subject of comparison, otherwise than by being personified. Shakespeare 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.

To have a just notion of comparisons, they must be distinguished into two kinds; one common and familiar, as where a man is compared to a lion in courage, or to a horse in speed; the other more distant and refined, where two things that have in themselves no resemblance or opposition, are compared with respect to their effects. There is no resemblance between a flower pot and a cheerful song; and yet they may be compared with respect to their effects, the emotions they produce in the mind being extremely similar. There is as little resemblance between fraternal concord and precious ointment; and yet observe how successfully they are compared with respect to the impressions they make.

"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for "brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down 66 upon Aaron's beard, and descended to the skirts "of his garment." Psalm 133.

For illustrating this sort of comparison, we shall add some more examples: VOL. VI. Part I.

son.

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. ii. sc. 6. "There is a joy in grief when peace dwells with "the sorrowful. But they are wasted with mourn"ing, O daughter of Toscar, and their days are "few. They fall away like the flower on which "the sun looks in his strength, after the mildew has passed over it, and its head is heavy with the drops "of night." Fingal.

66

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.

O thou goodness,

Macbeth, Act. v. sc. 5.

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 inchaf'd) as the rudest wind,
That by the top doth take the mountain-pine,
And make him stoop to the vale.

Cymbeline, Act iv. sc. 4. "Why did not I pass away in secret, like the "flower of the rock that lifts its fair head unseen, "and strows its withered leaves on the blast ?"

Fingal.

As words convey but a faint and obscure notion of great numbers, a poet, to give a lively notion of the object he describes, with regard to number, does well to compare it to what is familiar and commonly known. Thus Homer compares the Grecian army in point of number to a swarm of bees; in another passage 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, Hov'ring on wing under the cope of hell, 'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires. Paradise Lost, Book i..

Such comparisons have, by some writers, 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 ii. 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 drawing 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 evening from the top of Fesole.
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.

Milton, Book i.

Thus far these beyond Compare of mortal prowess, yet observ'd Their dread commander. He, above the rest, In shape and stature proudly eminent, Stood like a tow'r; his form had not yet lost All her original brightness, nor appear'd Less than archangel 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, Book i.

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, Book iii.

Next of comparisons that aggrandise or elevate. These affect us more than any other sort; the reason of which 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,

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 iii. sc. 4.

But it will be a better illustration of the present head, to give examples where comparisons are improperly introduced. Similes are not the language of a man in his ordinary state of mind, dispatching his daily and usual work: for that reason the following speech of a gardener to his servant is extremely improper:

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

Richard 11. Act iii. sc. 7.

The fertility of Shakespeare's vein betrays him frequently into this error.

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 be 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 i. sc. 5. A man spent and dispirited after losing a battle is not disposed to heighten or illustrate his discourse by similes. York.

Zzz

Meanwhile the troops beneath Patroclus' care,
Invade the Trojans, and commence the war.
As wasps, provok'd by children in their play,
Pour from their mansions by the broad highway,
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 their 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 every lance he threw.
Iliad, xvii. 642.

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. Their remarkable disparity, 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 comparison.

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 we cannot help condemning, though with some reluctancy, the following simile, or rather metaphor.

O thou fond many! with what loud applause
Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke
Before he was what thou would'st have him be?
And now being trimm'd up in thine own desires,
Thou, beastly feeder, are 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 wouldst eat thy dead vomit up,
And howl'st to find it.

Second Part Henry IV. Act. 1. 86. 6.
The