ent accounts; as we ftrike out sparks of fire by the collifion of flints and steel.

Racine makes Pyrrhus fay to Andromaque,

Vaincu, chargé de fers, de regrets confumé,
Brulé de plus de feux que je n'en allumai,
Helas! fus-je jamais fi cruel que vous l'etés?

And Oreftes, in the fame ftrain:

Que les Scythes font moins cruels qu' Hermione.

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

Je croyois Janneton

Auffi douce que belle:

Je croyois Janneton

Plus douce qu'un mouton;

Helas! helas!

Elle est cent fois, mille fois, plus cruelle

Que n'est le tigre aux bois..

Again,

Helas! l'amour m'a pris,

Comme le chat fait la fouris.

A

1

A vulgar Irish ballad begins thus

I have as much love in ftore
As there's apples in Portmore.

Where the subject is burlefque or ludicrous, fuch fimiles are far from being im Horace fays pleasantly,

proper.

Quanquam tu levior cortice.

L.

3.

ode 9.

And Shakespear,

In breaking oaths he's stronger than Hercules.

And this leads me to obferve, that befide the foregoing comparisons, which are all ferious, there is a fpecies, the end and purpose of which is to excite gaiety or mirth. Take the following examples.

Falftaff, fpeaking to his page:

I do here walk before thee, like a fow that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one.

Second Part Henry IV. a&t 1. c. 4.

I think he is not a pick-purse, nor a horse-stealer; but for his verity in love, I do think him as

concave

concave as a cover'd goblet, or a worm-eaten nut. As. you like it, alt 3. sc. 10.

This fword a dagger had his page,
That was but little for his age;

And therefore waited on him fo
As dwarfs upon knights-errant do.

Hudibras, canto v

Description of Hudibras's horfe:

He was well stay'd, and in his gait
Preferv'd a grave, majestic state.
At fpur or fwitch no more he skipt,
Or mended pace, than Spaniard whipt:
fo fiery he would bound,

And

yet

As if he griev'd to touch the ground:
That Cæfar's horfe, who, as fame goes,
Had corns upon his feet and toes,

Was not by half fo tender hooft,

Nor trod upon the ground fo foft.
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 fet him down.

Honour is, like a widow, won
With brifk attempt and putting on,
VOL. III.
G

Canto 1.

1

With

With entering manfully, and urging;
Not flow approaches, like a virgin.

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 profperity, but on the decline of fortune, to drop fuddenly off: whereas the generous author, juft on the contrary, finds his hero on the dunghill, from thence by gradual fteps raises him to a throne, and then immediately withdraws, expecting not fo much as thanks for his pains.

Tale of a Tub.

The most accomplish'd way of using books at prefent is, to ferve them as fome do lords, learn

Tale of a Tub.

their titles, and then brag of their acquaintance.

Box'd in a chair, the beau impatient fits,

While spouts run clatt'ring o'er the roof by fits;
And ever and anon with frightful din

The leather founds; 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,
Inftead of paying chairmen, run them through),
Laocoon ftruck the outfide with his fpear,
And each imprison'd hero quak'd for fear.

Defcription of a city shower. Swift.

Clubs, diamonds, hearts, in wild diforder feen,
With throngs promifcuous ftrow the level green.
Thus when difpers'd a routed army runs,
Of Afia's troops, and Afric's fable fons,
With like confufion different nations fly,
Of various habit, and of various dye,
The pierc'd battalions difunited, fall
In heaps on heaps; one fate o'erwhelms them all.

Rape of the Lock, canto 3.

He does not confider, that fincerity in love is as much out of fashion as fweet fnuff; no body

takes it now,

Careless Hufband.

G 2

Lady