Thou hid'st a thousand daggers in thy thoughts,
Which thou haft whetted on thy ftony heart
To ftab at half an hour of my frail life.

Second Part Henry IV. act 4. fc. 11.

Such faulty metaphors are pleasantly ridiculed in the Rehearsal:

Phyfician. Sir, to conclude, the place you fill has more than amply exacted the talents of a wary pilot; and all thefe threatening ftorms, which, like impregnate clouds, hover o'er our heads, will, when they once are grafp'd but by the eye of reafon, melt into fruitful fhowers of bleffings on the people.

Bayes. Pray mark that allegory. Is not that good? Johnson. Yes, that grafping of a storm with the eye is admirable. Act 2. fc. 1.

Fifthly, The jumbling different metaphors in the fame sentence, or the beginning with one metaphor and ending with another, commonly called a mixt metaphor, ought never to be indulged. Quintilian bears teftimony against it, in the bitterest terms: "Nam id quoque in pri"mis eft cuftodiendum, ut quo ex genere cœ“ peris tranflationis, hoc definas. Multi enim, "cum initium a tempeftate fumpferunt, incen"dio aut ruina finiunt: quæ eft inconsequentia "rerum fœdiffima." L. 8. cap. 6. § 2.

K. Henry.

Will you again unknit

And

This churlifh knot of all-abhorred war,

And move in that obedient orb again,

Where you did give a fair and natural light?

First Part Henry VI. act 5. fc. 1.

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The ftings and arrows of outrag'ous fortune;
Or to take arms against a fea of troubles,
And by oppofing end them.

Hamlet, act 3. Sc. 2.

In the fixth place, It is unpleasant to join different metaphors in the fame period, even where they are preferved diftinct for when the subject is imagined to be first one thing and then another in the fame period without interval, the mind is distracted by the rapid tranfition; and when the imagination is put on such hard duty, its images are too faint to produce any good ef fect:

Tractas, et incedis per ignes
Subpofitos cineri dolofo.

Horat. Carm. I. 2. ode 1.

In the last place, It is ftill worse to jumble together metaphorical and natural expreffion, or to construct a period fo as that it must be understood partly metaphorically partly literally; for the imagination cannot follow with fufficient eafe changes fo fudden and unprepared: a metaphor begun and not carried on, hath no beauty; and instead of light there is nothing but obfcurity and confufion. Instances of fuch incorrect compofition are without number: I fhall, for a fpecimen, select a few from different authors.

Speaking of Britain,

This precious ftone fet in the fea,
Which ferves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defenfive to a house
Against the envy of lefs happier lands.

Richard II. at 2. fc. 1.

In the first line Britain is figured to be a precious ftone in the following lines, Britain, divested of her metaphorical drefs, is prefented to the reader in her natural appearance.

Thefe growing feathers pluck'd from Cæfar's wing,
Will make him fly an ordinary pitch,

Who else would foar above the view of men,

And keep us all in fervile fearfulness.

Julius Cafar, act 1. fc. 1.

Rebus

Rebus anguftis animofus atque
Fortis adpare: fapienter idem

Contrahes vento nimium fecundo
Turgida vela.

Hor.

The following is a miferable jumble of expreffions, arifing from an unfteady view of the fubject, between its figurative and natural appear

ance:

But now from gath'ring clouds destruction pours,
Which ruins with mad rage our halcyon hours:
Mifts from black jealoufies the tempeft form,
Whilft late divifions reinforce the storm.

Difpenfary, canto 3'

To thee, the world its present homage pays,
The harvest early, but mature the praise.

Pope's imitation of Horace, b. 2.

Oui, fa pudeur n'eft que franche grimace,
Qu'une ombre de vertu qui garde mal la place,
Et qui s'evanouit, comme l'on peut favoir,
rayons du foleil qu'une bourse fait voir.

Aux

Molliere, L'Etourdi, act 3. fc. 2.

Et fon feu, depourvû de fenfe et de lecture,
S'éteint a chaque pas, faute de nourriture.

Boileau, L'art poetique, chant. 3. l. 319.

Dryden, in his dedication of the translation of Juvenal, fays,

When

When thus, as I may fay, before the ufe of the loadftone, or knowledge of the compafs, I was failing in a vaft ocean, without other help than the pole-star of the ancients, and the rules of the French ftage among the moderns, &c.

There is a time when factions, by the vehemence of their own fermentation, ftun and difable one another. Bolingbroke.

This fault of jumbling the figure and plain expreffion into one confused mafs, is not lefs common in allegory than in metaphor. Take the following examples.

Heu! quoties fidem,

Mutatofque Deos flebit, et afpera

Nigris æquora ventis

Emirabitur infolens,

Qui nunc te fruitur credulus aureâ :

Qui femper vacuam, femper amabilem

Sperat, nefcius auræ

Fallacis.

Horat. Carm. I. 1. ode 5.

Pour moi fur cette mer, qu' ici bas nous courons,
Je fonge à me pourvoir d' efquif et d'avirons,
A regler me defirs, à prévenir l'orage,
Et fauver, s'il fe peut, ma Raifon du naufrage.

Boileau, epitre 5.

Lord Halifax, fpeaking of the ancient fabulists: "They (fays he) wrote in figns and spoke in "rables: all their fables carry a double meaning:

pa

"the