O meæ spes inanes! labentes oculos tuum fugientem spiritum vidi? Tuum corpus frigidum, exangue complexus, animam recipere, auramque communem haurire amplius potui? Tene, consulari nuper adoptione ad omnium spes honorum patris admotum, te, avunculo prætori generum destinatum; te, omnium spe Atticæ eloquentiæ candidatum, parens superstes tantum ad pœnas amisi !"'* In this passage Quintilian shows the true genius of an orator, as much as he does elsewhere that of the critic. For such bold figures of discourse as strong personifications, addresses to personified objects, and apostrophes, the glowing imagination of the ancient oriental nations was particularly fitted. Hence in the sacred Scriptures, we find some very remarkable instances: "O thou sword of the Lord! how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put thyself up into the scabbard, rest and be still! How can it be quiet, seeing the Lord hath given it a charge against Ashkelon, and against the sea-shore? there he hath appointed it."t There is one passage in particular, which I must not omit to mention, because it contains a greater assemblage of sublime ideas, of bold and daring figures, than is perhaps any where to be met with. It is in the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah, where the prophet thus describes the fall of the Assyrian empire: "Thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers. He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke: he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none hindereth. The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet; they break forth into singing. Yea, the firtrees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us. Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming; it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth: it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak, and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols; the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man which made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms? that made the world as a

With what spirit, and how much to the admiration of the physicians did he bear throughout eight months his lingering distress! With what tender attention did he study, even in the last extremity, to comfort me! And when no longer himself, how affecting was it to behold the disordered efforts of his wandering mind, wholly employed on subjects of literature? Ah! my frustrated and fallen hopes! Have I then beheld your closing eyes, and heard the last groan issue from your lips. After having embraced your cold and breathless body, how was it in my power to draw the vital air or continue to drag a miserable life. When I had just beheld you raised by consular adoption to the prospect of all your father's honours, destined to be son-in-law to your uncle the Prætor, pointed out by general expectation as the successful candidate for the prize of Attic eloquence, in this moment of your opening bonours must I lose you for ever, and remain an unhappy parent, surviving only to suffer wo.

† Jer. xlvii. 6, 7.

wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners? All the kings of the nations, even all of them lie in glory, every one in his own house. But thou art cast out of thy grave, like an abominable branch and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit, as a carcass trodden under feet." This whole passage is full of sublimity. Every object is animated; a variety of personages are introduced; we hear the Jews, the fir-trees, and cedars of Lebanon, the ghosts of departed kings, the king of Babylon himself, and those who look upon his body, all speaking in their order, and acting their different parts without confusion.

LECTURE XVII.

COMPARISON, ANTITHESIS, INTERROGATION, EXCLAMATION, AND OTHER FIGURES OF SPEECH.

WE are still engaged in the consideration of figures of speech; which, as they add much to the beauty of style when properly employed, and are, at the same time, liable to be greatly abused, require a careful discussion. As it would be tedious to dwell on all the variety of figurative expressions which rhetoricians have enumerated, I chose to select the capital figures, such as occur most frequently, and to make my remarks on these; the principles and rules laid down concerning them, will sufficiently direct us to the use of the rest, either in prose or poetry. Of metaphor, which is the most common of them all, I treated fully; and in the last lecture I discoursed of hyperbole, personification, and apostrophe. This lecture will nearly finish what remains on the head of figures.

Comparison, or simile, is what I am to treat of first; a figure frequently employed both by poets and prose writers, for the ornament of composition. In a former lecture, I explained fully the difference betwixt this and metaphor. A metaphor is a comparison implied, but not expressed as such; as when I say, "Achilles is a lion," meaning, that he resembles one in courage or strength. A comparison is, when the resemblance between two objects is expressed in form, and generally pursued. more fully than the nature of a metaphor admits; as when I say, "the actions of princes are like those great rivers, the course of which every one beholds, but their springs have been seen by few." This slight instance will show, that a happy comparison is a kind of sparkling ornament, which adds not a little lustre and beauty to discourse; and hence such figures are termed by Cicero, "Orationis lumina."

The pleasure we take in comparisons is just and natural. We may remark three different sources whence it arises. First, from the pleasure which nature has annexed to that act of the mind by which we compare any two objects together, trace resemblances among those that are different, and differences among those that resemble each other; a pleasure, the final cause of which is, to prompt us to remark and observe, and thereby to make us advance in useful knowledge. This operation of the mind is naturally and universally agreeable; as appears from the

delight which even children have in comparing things together, as soon as they are capable of attending to the objects that surround them. Secondly, the pleasure of comparison arises from the illustration which the simile employed gives to the principal object; from the clearer view of it which it presents: or the more strong impression of it which it stamps upon the mind and thirdly, it arises from the introduction of a new, and commonly a splendid object, associated to the principal one of which we treat; and from the agreeable picture which that object presents to the fancy; new scenes being thereby brought into view, which, without the assistance of this figure, we could not have enjoyed.

All comparisons whatever may be reduced under two heads, explaining and embellishing comparisons. For when a writer likens the object of which he treats to any other thing, it always is, or at least always should be, with a view either to make us understand that object more distinctly, or to dress it up, and adorn it. All manner of subjects admit of explaining comparisons. Let an author be reasoning ever so strictly, or treating the most abstruse point in philosophy, he may very properly introduce a comparison, merely with a view to make his subject better understood. Of this nature, is the following in Mr. Harris's Hermes, employed to explain a very abstract point, the distinction between the powers of sense and imagination in the human mind. "As wax," says he, "would not be adequate to the purpose of signature, if it had not the power to retain as well as to receive the impression; the same holds of the soul, with respect to sense and imagination. Sense is its receptive power; imagination its retentive. Had it sense without imagination, it would not be as wax, but as water, where though all impressions be instantly made, yet as soon as they are made, they are instantly lost." In comparisons of this nature, the understanding is concerned much more than the fancy; and therefore the only rules to be observed, with respect to them, are, that they be clear, and that they be useful; that they tend to render our conception of the principal object more. distinct: and that they do not lead our view aside, and bewilder it with any false light.

But embellishing comparisons, introduced not so much with a view to inform and instruct, as to adorn the subject of which we treat, are, those with which we are chiefly concerned at present, as figures of speech; and those, indeed, which most frequently occur. Resemblance, as I before mentioned, is the foundation of this figure. We must not, however, take resemblance, in too strict a sense, for actual similitude or likeness of appearance. Two objects may sometimes be very happily compared to one another, though they resemble each other, strictly speaking, in nothing; only, because they agree in the effects which they produce upon the mind; because they raise a train of similar, or what may be called, concordant ideas; so that the remembrance of the one, when recalled, serves to strengthen the impression made by the other. For example, to describe the nature of soft and melancholy music, Ossian says, "The music of Carryl was, like the memory of joys that are past, pleasant and mournful to the soul." This is happy and delicate. Yet, surely, no kind of music has any resemblance to a feeling of the mind, such as the memory of past joys. Had it been compared to the voice of the nightingale, or the murmur of the stream, as it would have been by some ordinary poet, the likeness would have been more strict; but, by founding his simile upon the effect which Carryl's music produced, the poet, while he conveys a very tender image, gives us, at the same time, a much stronger.

impression of the nature and strain of that music: "Like the memory of joys that are past, pleasant and mournful to the soul."

In general, whether comparisons be founded on the similitude of the two objects compared, or on some analogy and agreement in their effects, the fundamental requisite of a comparison is, that it shall serve to illustrate the object, for the sake of which it is introduced, and to give us a stronger conception of it. Some little excursions of fancy may be permitted, in pursuing the simile; but they must never deviate far from the principal object. If it be a great and noble one, every circumstance in the comparison must tend to aggrandize it; if it be a beautiful one, to render it more amiable; if terrible, to fill us with more awe. But to be a little more particular: The rules to be given concerning comparisons respect chiefly two articles; the propriety of their introduction, and the nature of the objects whence they are taken. First, the propriety of their introduction. From what has already been said of comparisons, it appears, that they are not, like the figures of which I treated in the last lecture, the language of strong passion. No; they are the language of imagination rather than of passion; of an imagination sprightly indeed, and warmed; but undisturbed by any violent or agitating emotion. Strong passion is too severe to admit this play of fancy. It has no leisure to cast about for resembling objects; it dwells on that object which has seized and taken possession of the soul. It is too much occupied and filled by it, to turn its view aside, or to fix its attention on any other thing. An author, therefore, can scarcely commit a greater fault, than in the midst of passion to introduce a simile. Metaphorical expression may be allowable in such a situation; though even this may be carried too far; but the pomp and solemnity of a formal comparison is altogether a stranger to passion. It changes the key in a moment; relaxes and brings down the mind; and shows us a writer perfectly at his ease, while he is personating some other, who is supposed to be under the torment of agitation. Our writers of tragedies are very apt to err here. In some of Mr. Rowe's plays, these flowers of similes have been strewed unseasonably. Mr. Addison's Cato, too, is justly censurable in this respect; as when Portius, just after Lucia had bid him farewell for ever, and when he should naturally have been represented as in the most violent anguish, makes his reply in a studied and affected comparison :

Thus o'er the dying lamp th' unsteady flame
Hangs quiv'ring on a point, leaps off by fits,
And falls again, as loth to quit its hold.

Thou must not go; my soul still hovers o'er thee,
And can't get loose.

Every one must be sensible, that this is quite remote from the language of nature on such occasions.

However, as comparison is not the style of strong passion, so neither, when employed for embellishment, is it the language of a mind wholly unmoved. It is a figure of dignity, and always requires some elevation in the subject, in order to make it proper: for it supposes the imagination to be uncommonly enlivened, though the heart be not agitated by passion. In a word, the proper place of comparisons lies in the middle region between the highly pathetic, and the very humble style. This is a wide field, and gives ample range to the figure. But even this field we must take care not to overstock with it. For, as we before said, it is a sparkling-ornament; and all things that sparkle, dazzle and fatigue, if they

recur too often. Similes should, even in poetry, be used with moderation; but in prose writings, much more; otherwise the style will become disagreeably florid, and the ornament lose its virtue and effect.

I proceed, next, to the rules that relate to objects whence comparisons should be drawn; supposing them introduced in their proper place.

In the first place, they must not be drawn from things which have too near and obvious a resemblance to the object with which we compare them. The great pleasure of the act of comparing lies in discovering likenesses among things of different species, where we would not, at the first glance, expect a resemblance. There is little art or ingenuity in pointing out the resemblance of two objects, that are so much akin, or lie so near to one another in nature, that every one sees they must be alike. When Milton compares Satan's appearance, after his fall, to that of the sun suffering an eclipse, and affrighting the nations with portentous darkness, we are struck with the happiness and the dignity of the similitude. But when he compares Eve's bower in Paradise, to the arbour of Pomona; or Eve herself, to a driad, or wood-nymph, we receive little entertainment; as every one sees that one arbour must, of course, in several respects, resemble another arbour, and one beautiful woman another beautiful woman.

Among similes, faulty through too great obviousness of the likeness, we must likewise rank those which are taken from objects become trite and familiar in poetical language. Such are the similes of a hero to a lion, of a person in sorrow to a flower drooping its head, of violent passion to a tempest, of chastity to snow, of virtue to the sun or the stars, and many more of this kind, with which we are sure to find modern writers, of second rate genius, abounding plentifully; handed down from every writer of verses to another, as by hereditary right. These comparisons were, at first, perhaps, very proper for the purposes to which they are applied. In the ancient original poets, who took them directly from nature, not from their predecessors, they had beauty. But they are now beaten; our ears are so accustomed to them, that they give no amusement to the fancy. There is, indeed, no mark by which we can more readily distinguish a poet of true genius, from one of a barren imagination, than by the strain of their comparisons. All who call themselves poets, affect them: but, whereas a mere versifier copies no new image from nature, which appears, to his uninventive genius, exhausted by those who have gone before him, and, therefore, contents himself with humbly following their track; to an author of real fancy, nature seems to unlock, spontaneously, her hidden stores; and the eye, "quick glancing from earth to heaven," discovers new shapes and forms, new likenesses between objects unobserved before, which render his similes original, expressive, and lively.

But in the second place, as comparisons ought not to be founded on likenesses too obvious, still less ought they to be founded on those which are too faint and remote. For these, in place of assisting, strain the fancy to comprehend them, and throw no light upon the subject. It is also to be observed, that a comparison, which, in the principal circumstances, carries a sufficiently near resemblance, may become unnatural and obscure, if pushed too far. Nothing is more opposite to the design. of this figure, than to hunt after a great number of coincidences in minute points, merely to show how far the poet's wit can stretch the rescmblance. This is Mr. Cowley's common fault; whose comparisons gene