delights to dwell within them, as houfes are faid to be haunted when they are forfaken and gone to decay.*

Ibid.

Here it may not be amifs to add a few words upon the laudable practice of wearing quilted caps. Thefe, when moiftened with fweat, ftop all perfpiration; and, by rever berating the heat, prevent the fpirit from evaporating any way, but at the mouth; even as a skilful houfewife that covers her ftill with a wet clout for the fame reason, and finds the fame effect. Ibid.

Seminaries of learning, as well as particular fhops, are fometimes frequented more on account of what they have been, than what they are: fo many inftances of this might be produced, that it feems to be a prevailing opinion in this ifland, that talents and genius, like cats, are more attached to particular walls and houfes than to the perfons who refide within them. Moore's Edward.

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I. A comparifon must not be inflituted between objects which bear too near and obvious a refemblance to each other. The great pleasure of the act of comparing lies in difcovering likene ffes between things of different fpecies, where we would not, at the first glance, expect a refemblance. There is little art or ingenuity in pointing out refemblances which cannot efcape the most careless obferver. When Milton compares Satan's appearance after his fall to that of the fun fuffering an eclipfe, and affrighting the nations with portentous darknefs, we are ftruck with the happiness and the dignity of the fimilitude. But, when he compares Eve's bower in Paradife to the arbour of Pomona, or Eve herself to a Dryad, or Wood-nymph, we receive little entertainment: every perfon fees, that, in feveral refpects, one arbour must of course resemble another arbour, and one beautiful woman another beautiful woman.

II. As comparisons ought not to be founded on likeneffes too obvious, ftill lefs ought they to be founded on those which

* This thought was perhaps fuggefted by the following couplet :

The foul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd,
Lets in new lights through chinks that Time had made.

Waller.

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are tec faint and remote. When differences or refemblances are carried beyond certain bounds, they appear flight and trivial; and for that reafon will not be relished by perfons. of tafte. The following inftance will probably amufe the reader: it is a quotation, not from a poet or orator, but from a grave author writing an inftitute of law.

Our ftudent fhall obferve, that the knowledge of the law is like a deep well, out of which each man draweth according to the ftrength of his understanding. He that reacheth deepest, feeth the amiable and admirable fecrets of the law, wherein I affure you the fages of the law in former times have had the deepeft reach. And as the bucket in the depth is easily drawn to the uppermost part of the water, (for nullum elementum in suo proprio loco est grave,) but take it from the water, it cannot be drawn up but with a great difficulty, fo, albeit beginnings of this ftudy feem difficult, yet when the profe for of the law can dive into the depth, it is delightful, eafy, and without any heavy burden, fo long as he keep bimfelf in his own proper element. Coke upon Littleton. This mode of ftretching comparisons is admirably exposed. in the following paffage:

Fluellen. I think it is in Macedon where Alexander is porn: I tell you, Captain, if you look in the maps of the orld, I warrant that you fall find, in the comparisons be tween Macedon and Monmouth, that the fituations, look you, is both alike. There is a river in Macedon, there is alfo moreover a river in Monmouth: it is called Wye at Monmouth, but it is out of my prains what is the name of the other river; but it is all one, 'tis as like as my fingers to my fingers, and there is falmons in both. If you mark Alexander's life well, Harry of Monmouth's life is come after it indifferent well; for there is figures in all things.. Alexander, God knows, and you know, in his rages, and his furies, and his wraths, and his cholers, and his moods, and. his difpleafures, and his indignations, and alfo being a little. intoxicates in his prains, did, in his ales and his angers, look you, kill his pest friend Clytus.

Gower. Our king is not like him in that, he never kill'd. any of his friends..

Fluellen. It is not well done, mark you now, to take the tales out of my mouth, ere it is made and finished. I speak but in figures, and comparifons of it: As Alexander killed his friend Clytus, being in his ales and his cups; fo alfo Harry Monmouth, being in his right wits and his good. judgments, turn'd away the fat knight with the great belly doublet; he was full of jefts, and gypes, and knaveries, and mocks: I have forgot his name.

Gower. Sir John Falstaff.

Fluellen. That is he: I tell you, there is good men porn at Monmouth. Shakspeare's Henry V.

III. The object from which a comparison is drawn, fhould never be one of which but few people can form clear and diftinct ideas. Comparisons are introduced into difcourfe, for the fake of throwing light on the fubject. We muft, therefore, be upon our guard, not to employ, as the ground of our fimile, any object which is either obfcure or unknown. That which is ufed for the purpofe of illuftrating some other object, ought certainly to be more obvious and plain than the object intended to be illuftrated. Comparisons, there fore, founded on philofophical difcoveries, or on any thing with which perfons of a certain profeffion only are acquainted, do not produce their proper effect in any piece intended for the public at large. They fhould be taken from thofe illuftrations, noted objects, which the majority of readers either have feen, or can ftrongly conceive.

IV. A writer of delicacy will avoid drawing his comparifons from any image that is naufeous, ugly or remarkably. difagreeable; for however ftriking the refemblance may be, the reader will be more ftrongly affected with fenfations of difguft, than with those of pleasure.

V. The ftrongeft objection which can be urged against a comparifon, is, that it confifts in words only, not in fenfe. Such falfe coin is fuitable in the burlefque; but it is far below the dignity of the epic, or of any ferious compofition. It is difputed among critics, whether the following fimile bo not of this description :

The noble fifter of Poplicola,

The Moon of Rome; chalte as the icicle

Shakspeare.

That's curdled by the froft from pureft fnow, And hangs on Dian's temple. "There is," faye Lord Kames, "evidently no refemblance between an icicle, and a woman, chafte or unchafte: but chastity is cold in a metaphorical fenfe; and this verbal refemblance, in the hurry and glow of compofition, has been thought a fufficient foundation for the fimile. Such phantom fimiles are mere witticifins, which ought to have no quarter, except where purpofely introduced to provoke laughter."*

"This," fays Goldfmith, "is no more than illuftrating a quality of the mind, by comparing it with a fenfible object. If there is no impropriety in faying fuch a man is true as fteel, firm as a rock, inflexible as an oak, unfteady as the ocean, or in defcribing a difpofition cold as ice, or fickle as the wind; and thefe expreffions are juftified by practice; we fhall hazard an affertion, that the comparison of a chafte woman to an icicle is proper and picturefque, as it obtains only in the circumftances of cold and purity; but that the addition of its being curdled from the pureft fnow and hanging on the temple of Diana, the patronefs of virginity, heightens the whole into a noft beautiful fimile."†,

Ο

CHAP. XVI..

OF METAPHOR..

NE of the moft pleafing exercises of the imagination

is that in which he is employed in comparing distinct ideas, and difcovering their various refemblances. There is no fimple perception of the mind that is not capable of an infinite number of confiderations in reference to other objects; and it is in the novelty and variety of thefe unexpected connections, that the richness of a writer's genius is

Kames's Elements of Criticifm, chap. xix. -
Goldfmith's Effays, vol. ii. effay xvii.

chiefly difplayed. A vigorous and lively fancy does not tamely confine itfelf to the idea which lies before it, but looks beyond the immediate object of its contemplation, and obferves how it ftands in conformity with numberless others. It is the prerogative of the human mind thus to bring its images together, and compare the feveral circumftances of fimilitude which attend them. By these means eloquence exercifes a kind of magic power; fhe can raife innumerable beauties from the most barren fubjects, and give the grace of novelty to the most common. The imagination is thus kept awake by the most agreeable motion, and entertained with a thoufand different views both of art and nature, which ftill terminate at the principal object. For this reason, the metaphor is generally preferred to the fimile, as a more pleafing mode of illuftration. In the former, the action of the mind is lefs languid, as it is employed at the very fame inftant in comparing the refemblance with the idea which it attends: whereas in the latter, its operations are more flow, as it must firit contemplate the principal object, and afterwards its correfponding image.

A metaphor differs from a fimile in form only, not in fubflance comparifon is the foundation of both. In a fimile, the two fubjects are kept diftinct in the expreffion, as well as in the thought; in a metaphor, they are kept diftinct in the thought, but not in the expreffion. A hero resembles a lion; and upon that resemblance many fimiles have been founded by Homer and other poets. But let us call in the aid of the imagination, and figure the hero to be a lion, inftead of only refembling one: by that variation the fimile is converted into a metaphor; which is carried on by deferibing all the qualities of the lion which refemble thofe of the hero. The poet, by figuring his hero to be a lion, proceeds to defcribe the lion in appearance; but in reality he is all the while defcribing the hero; and his defcription becomes peculiarly beautiful, by expreffing the virtues and qualities of the hero in terms which properly belong not to him but to the lion.

When I fay of some great minister, "that he upholds the fate like a pillar which fupports the weight of a whole edifice," I evidently frame a comparison: but when I fay of the fame minifter" that he is a pillar of the ftate," this is