with thofe already given with respect to fimiles; fome are peculiar to metaphors and allegories.

And in the first place, it has been obferved, that a fimile cannot be agreeable where the refemblance is either too ftrong or too faint. This holds equally in a metaphor and allegory; and the reafon is the fame in all. In the following inftances, the resemblance is too faint to be agreeable.

Malcolm.

But there's no bottom, none,

In my voluptuoufnefs: your wives, your daughters,
Your matrons, and your maids, could not fill up
The ciftern of my luft.

Macbeth, act 4. Sc. 4.

The best way to judge of this metaphor, is to convert it into a fimile; which would be bad, because there is fcarce any refemblance between luft and a cistern, or betwixt enormous luft and a large ciftern.

Again:

He cannot buckle his diftemper'd cause

Within the belt of rule.

Macbeth, at 5, Sc. 2.

There is no refemblance between a distempered cause and any body that can be confined within a

belt.

Again :

Steep me in poverty to the very lips.

Othello, act 4. fc. 9.

Poverty here must be conceived a fluid, which it

resembles not in any manner.

The following metaphor is ftrained beyond all endurance: Timur-bec, known to us by the name of Tamerlane the Great, writes to Bajazet Emperor of the Ottomans in the following

terms:

Where is the monarch who dares refift us? where is the potentate who doth not glory in being numbered among our attendants ? As for thee, defcended from a Turcoman failor, fince the veffel of thy unbounded ambition hath been wreck'd in the gulf of thy felf-love, it

would

1

would be proper, that thou fhouldft take in the fails of thy temerity, and cast the anchor of repentance in the port of fincerity and justice, which is the port of safety; left the tempeft of our vengeance make thee perish in the fea of the punishment thou deferveft.

Such ftrained figures, as obferved above*, are not unfrequent in the first dawn of refinement : the mind in a new enjoyment knows no bounds, and is generally carried to excefs, till experience discover the proper limits.

Secondly, Whatever refemblance fubjects may have, it is wrong to put one for another, if they bear no mutual proportion: where a very high and a very low fubject are compared, the fimile takes on an air of burlesk; and the fame will be the effect, where the one is imagined to be the other, as in a metaphor; or made to reprefent the other, as in an allegory.

Thirdly, Thefe figures, a metaphor efpecially, ought not to be crowded with many minute circumstances; for in that cafe it is fcarcely poffible to avoid obfcurity. A metaphor above all ought to be fhort: it is difficult, during any courfe of time, to support a lively image of one thing being another; and for that reafon, a metaphor drawn out to any length, inftead of illuftrating or enlivening the principal fubject, becomes difagreeable by overftraining the mind. Cowley is

Chap. 19. Comparisons.

extremely

extremely licentious in this way: take the following inftance.

Great, and wife conqu'ror, who where-e'er
Thou com'ft, doth fortify, and settle there!
Who canft defend as well as get;

And never hadft one quarter beat up yet;
Now thou art in, thou ne'er will part
With one inch of my vanquifh'd heart;
For fince thou took'st it by affault from me,
'Tis garrifon'd fo ftrong with thoughts of thee
It fears no beauteous enemy.

For the fame reafon, however agreeable long allegories may at first be by their novelty, they never afford any lafting pleafure: witnefs the Fairy Queen, which with great power of expreffion, variety of images, and melody of verfification, is fcarce ever read a second time.

In the fourth place, The comparison carried on in a fimile, being in a metaphor funk by imagining the principal fubject to be that very thing which it only resembles; an opportunity is furnifhed to defcribe it in terms taken ftrictly or literally with respect to its imagined nature. This fuggefts another rule, That in constructing a metaphor, the writer ought to confine himself to the fimpleft expreffions, and make ufe of fuch words only as are applicable literally to the imagined nature of his fubject: figurative words ought carefully to be avoided; for fuch complicated figures, instead, of fetting the principal subject in

a

a ftrong light, involve it in a cloud; and it is well if the reader, without rejecting by the lump, endeavour patiently to gather the plain meaning, regardless of the figures:

A stubborn and unconquerable flame

Creeps in his veins, and drinks the ftreams of life.

Lady Jane Gray, act 1. fc. 1.

Copied from Ovid,

Sorbent avidæ præcordia flammæ.

Metamorphofes, lib. ix. 172.

Let us analyse this expreffion. That a fever may be imagined a flame, 1 admit; though more than one step is neceffary to come at the refemblance: a fever, by heating the body, refembles fire; and it is no stretch to imagine a fever to be a fire: again, by a figure of speech, flame may be put for fire, because they are commonly conjoined; and therefore a fever may be termed a flame. But now admitting a fever to be a flame, its effects ought to be explained in words that agree literally to a flame. This rule is not obferved here; for a flame drinks figuratively only, not properly.

King Henry to his fon Prince Henry :

Thou