Medio dux agmine Turnus Vertitur arma tenens, et toto vertice supra est. Eneid. ix. 28. Talibus orabat, talefque miferrima fletus Fata obftant: placidafque viri Deus obftruit aures. quercum K. Rich. Give me the crown. Here, coufin, feize the crown, Here, on this fide, my hand; on that fide, thine. Now is this golden crown like a deep well, That owes two buckets, filling one another; The other down, unfeen and full of water; That That bucket down, and full of tears, am I, Drinking my griefs, whilft you mount up on high. Richard II. act 4. Sc.3. King John. Oh! Coufin, thou art come to fet mine eye; The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burnt; And all the shrowds wherewith my life should fail, King John, at 5. Sc. 10: York. My uncles both are flain in rescuing me: Third part Henry VI. at 1. c. 6. The latter of the two fimiles is good: the former, because of the faintnefs of the resemblance, produces no good effect, and crowds the narration with an ufelefs image. The next error I fhall mention is a capital one. In an epic poem, or in any elevated fubject, a writer ought to avoid raising a fimile upon a low image, which never fails to bring down the principal fubject. In general, it is a rule, that a grand object ought never to be resembled to one that is diminutive, however delicate the refemblance may be for it is the peculiar character of a grand object to fix the attention, and fwell the mind; : 02 mind; in which state, it is difagreeable 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 fwelling the mind: for one paffes with fatisfaction from a fmall to a great object; but cannot be drawn down, without reluctance, from great to small. Hence the following fimiles are faulty. Meanwhile the troops beneath Patroclus' care, Whet all their stings, and call forth ali their rage; Iliad, xvi. 312. So burns the vengeful hornet (foul all o'er) Iliad, xvii. 642. Inftant ardentes Tyrii: pars ducere muros, Jura Jura magiftratufque legunt, fanctumque fenatum. To defcribe bees gathering honey as refembling the builders of Carthage, would have a much better effect *. Tum vero Teucri incumbunt, et littore celfas Migrantes cernas, totaque ex urbe ruentes. Cum populant, hyemis memores, tectoque reponunt: Eneid. iv. 397. And accordingly Demetrius Phalereus (of Elocution, fect. 85.) obferves, that it has a better effect to compare fmall things to great than great things to small. The following fimile has not any one beauty to recommend it. The fubject is Amata the wife of King Latinus. Tum vero infelix, ingentibus excita monftris, This fimile seems to border upon the burlesque. An error oppofite to the former, is the introducing a resembling image, fo elevated or great as to bear no proportion to the principal fubject. Their remarkable difparity, being the most striking circumstance, feizes the mind, and never . fails to deprefs the principal fubject by contrast, instead of raising it by refemblance and if the disparity be exceeding great, the fimile takes on an air of burlefque; nothing being more ridiculous than to force an object out of its proper rank in nature, by equalling it with one greatly fuperior or greatly inferior. This will be evident from the following comparisons. Fervet opus, redolentque thymo fragrantia mella. Cum |