chaste or unchaste: but chastity is cold in a metaphorical sense, and an icicle 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:

Gallus, for whom my love increases hourly, as the green alder subjects itself to the new spring.

Nor Boileau, the chastest of all writers; and that even in his art of poetry:

Ainsi tel autrefois, qu'on vit avec Faret

Charbonner de ses vers les murs d'un cabaret,
S'en va mal à propos d'une voix insolente,
Chanter du peuple Hébreu la fuite triomphante
Et poursuivant Moïse au travers des déserts,
Court avec Pharaon se noyer dans les mers.

Chant I. 1. 21.

Mais allons voir le Vrai, jusqu'en sa source même.
Un dévot aux yeux creux, et d'abstinence blême,
S'il n'a point le cœur juste, est affreux devant Dieu.
L'Evangile au Chrétien ne dit, en aucun lieu,
Sois dévot: elle dit, Sois doux, simple, équitable:
Car d'un devot souvent au Chrétien véritable
La distance est deux fois plus longue, à mon avis,
Que du Pôle Antarctique au Détroit de Davis.

Boileau, Satire XL

But for their spirits and souls
This word rebellion had froze them up
As fish are in a pond.

Second Part Henry IV. Act I. Sc. 1.

Queen. The pretty vaulting sea refus'd to drown me;
Knowing, that thou would'st have me drown'd on shore;
With tears as salt as sea, through thy unkindness.

Second Part Henry VI. Act III. Sc. 2.

Here there is no manner of resemblance but in the word drown; for there is no real resemblance between being drowned 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:

And hence one master passion in the breast,
Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest.

Epist. II. 1. 131.

And again, talking of this same ruling or master passion:

Nature its mother, habit is its nurse;
Wit, spirit, faculties, but make it worse;
Reason itself but gives it edge and power;

As heav'n's bless'd beam turns vinegar more sour.

Lord Bolingbroke, speaking of historians:

Ib. 1. 145.

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,

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,

Vaincu, chargé de fers, de regrets consumé,
Brulé de plus de feux que je n'en allumai,
Hélas! fus-je jamais si cruel que vous l'êtes!

And Orestes in the same strain:

Que les Scythes sont moins cruels qu' Hermoine.

Similes of this kind put one in mind of a ludicrous French song:

Again:

Je croyois Janneton

Aussi douce que belle:

Je croyois Janneton

Plus douce qu'un mouton;

Hélas! Hélas!

Elle est cent fois, mille fois, plus cruelle

Que n'est le tigre aux bois.

Hélas! l'amour m'a pris,
Comme le chat fait la souris.

A vulgar Irish ballad begins thus:

I have as much love in store

As there's apples in Portmore.

Where the subject is burlesque or ludicrous, such similes are far from being improper. Horace says pleasantly,

And Shakspeare,

Quanquam tu levior cortice.*

In breaking oaths he's stronger than Hercules.

L. 3. Ode 9.

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 gayety or mirth. Take the following examples: Falstaff, speaking to his page:

I do here walk hefore thee, like a sow that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. Second Part Henry IV. Act I. Sc. 2.

* Although you are of less value than the rind.

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 covered goblet, or a worm-eaten nut.

As You Like It, Act III. Sc. 4.

This sword a dagger had his page,
That was but little for his age;
And therefore waited on him so,
As dwarfs upon knights-errant do.

Description of Hudibras's horse:

Hudibras, Canto I.

He was well stay'd, and in his gait
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.

Honor is, like a widow won
With brisk attempt and putting on,
With entering manfully and urging;
Not slow approaches, like a virgin.

The sun had long since in the lap
Of Thetis taken out his nap;
And, like a lobster boil'd, the morn
From black to red began to turn.

Canto I.

Canto I.

Part II. Canto II.

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. Ibid.

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.

Box'd in a chair, the beau impatient sits,
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.

Ibid.

Description of a City Shower. Swift.

Clubs, diamonds, hearts, in wild disorder seen,
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 III.

He does not consider that sincerity in love is as much out of fashion as sweet Careless Husband.

snuff; nobody takes it now.

Lady Easy. My dear, I am Sir Charles. O! not at all. a dish of tea.

afraid you have provoked her a little too far.
You shall see, I'll sweeten her, and she'll cool like

Ibid.

CHAPTER XX.

FIGURES.

The bestowing of sensibility and voluntary motion upon inanimate things, a bold figure-Illustrations-Personification of two kinds-The former attended with conviction-Abstract terms not well adapted to poetry-The difficulty of distinguishing between descriptive personification and a figure of speech-Dispiriting passions unfavorable to passionate personification-Passionate personification to be exclusively confined to the gratification of the passionDescriptive personification-The writer always to confine himself to easy personification—Personification of low objects, ridiculous-The same remark applicable to abstract terms-Terms of dignity excepted-Preparation necessary to personification-Descriptive personification to be especially restrained within due bounds-Descriptive personification to be dispatched in few words.

THE endless variety of expressions brought under the head of tropes and figures by ancient critics and grammarians, makes it evident, that they had no precise criterion for distinguishing tropes and figures from plain language. It was, accordingly, my opinion, that little could be made of them in the way of rational criticism; till discovering, by a sort of accident, that many of them depend on principles formerly explained, I gladly embrace the opportunity to show the influence of these principles where it would be the least expected. Confining myself, therefore, to such figures, I am luckily freed from much trash; without dropping, as far as I remember, any trope or figure that merits a proper name. And I begin with Prosopopia or personification, which is justly entitled to the first place.

SECTION I.-PERSONIFICATION.

THE bestowing of sensibility and voluntary motion upon things inanimate, is so bold a figure, as to require, one should imagine, very peculiar circumstances for operating the delusion: and yet, in the language of poetry, we find variety of expressions, which, though commonly reduced to that figure, are used without ceremony, or any sort of preparation; as, for example, thirsty ground, hungry church-yard, furious dart, angry ocean. These epithets, in their proper meaning, are attributes of sensible beings: what is their meaning when applied to things inanimate? do they make us conceive the ground, the churchyard, 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.

The mind, agitated by certain passions, is prone to bestow sensibility, upon things inanimate. This is an additional instance of the influence of passion upon our opinions and belief.† I give examples. Antony, mourning over the body of Cæsar murdered in the senate-house, vents his passion in the following words:

Antony. O pardon me thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers.

Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of time.

Julius Cæsar, Act III. Sc. 1.

Here Antony must have been impressed with a notion, that the body of Cæsar was listening to him, without which the speech would be foolish and absurd. Nor will it appear strange, considering what is said in the chapter above cited, that passion should have such power over the mind of man. In another example of the same kind, the earth, as a common mother, is animated to give refuge against a father's unkindness:

Almeria. O Earth, behold, I kneel upon thy bosom,

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

-I have no parent else.

Of all thy race. Hear me, thou common parent;
-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 IV. Sc. 7. Plaintive passions are extremely solicitous for vent; and a soliloquy commonly answers the purpose: but when such passion becomes excessive, it cannot be gratified but by sympathy from others; and if denied that consolation in a natural way, it will convert even things inanimate into sympathising beings. Thus Philoctetes complains to the rocks and promontories of the isle of Lemnos; and Alcestes dying, invokes the sun, the light of day, the clouds, the earth, her husband's palace, &c. 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: