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,
The dread of a misfortune, however imminent, involving always some doubt and uncertainty, agitates the mind, and excites the imagination:
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.
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:
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:
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.
Farewell, though death is in the word, for-ever!
Must throw thy brother on his fate, farewell:
Oh, how shall I repeat the word for-ever!
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.
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:
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.
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.
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:
Sæpe Notus, neque parturit imbres
Perpetuos: sic tu sapiens finire memento
Tristitiam vitæque labores
Molli, Plance, mero.
Horace, Carm. l. 1. ode 7.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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:
Bucol. vii. 37.
Ibid. 41.
Quantum vere novo viridis se subjicit alnus.
Buccol. x. 73.
Nor Tasso, in his Aminta:
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:
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.
This word rebellion had froze them up
As fish are in a pond.
Second Part Henry IV. act 1. sc. 3.
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.
Like Aaron’s serpent, swallows up the rest.
Epist. 2. l. 131.
And again, talking of this same ruling or master passion.
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,
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:
Similes of this kind put one in mind of a ludicrous French song:
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,
A vulgar Irish ballad begins thus:
As there’s apples in Portmore.
Where the subject is burlesque or ludicrous, such similes are far from being improper. Horace says pleasantly,
L. 3. ode 9.
And Shakespear,
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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: