His admirers have endeavoured to excuse him, by reminding us of the simplicity of the age in which he wrote; but they have not been able to prove that any ideas of dignity or importance were, even in those days, affixed to the character of an ass, or the quality of a beef-collop; therefore, they were very improper illustrations for any situation in which a hero ought to be represented. Virgil has degraded the wife of king Latinus, by comparing her, when she was actuated by the Fury, to a top which the boys lash for diversion. This, doubtless, is a low image, though in other respects the comparison is not destitute of propriety; but he is much more justly censured for the following simile, which has no sort of reference to the subject. Speaking of Turnus, he says: . . medio dux agmine Turnus Vertitur arma tenens, et toto vertice suprà est, "... But Turnus, chief amidst the warrior train, In armour towers the tallest on the plain, The Ganges thus by seven rich streams supplied, A mighty mass devolves in silent pride : Thus Nilus pours forth his prolific urn, When from the fields o'erflowed his vagrant streams return." 13 These, no doubt, are majestic images; but they bear no sort of resemblance to a hero glittering in armour at the head of his forces. Horace has been ridiculed by some shrewd critics for this comparison, which, however, we think is more defensible than the former. Addressing himself to Munatius Plancus, he says: "As Notus often, when the welkin lowers, Sweeps off the clouds, nor teems perpetual showers, So let thy wisdom, free from anxious strife, In mellow wine dissolve the cares of life." - DUNKIN.14 The analogy, it must be confessed, is not very striking; but nevertheless, it is not altogether void of propriety. The poet reasons thus: as the south wind, though generally attended with rain, is often known to dispel the clouds, and render the weather serene; so do you, though generally on the rack of thought, remember to relax sometimes, and drown your cares in wine. As the south wind is not always moist, so you ought not always to be dry. A few instances of inaccuracy, or mediocrity, can never derogate from the superlative merit of Homer and Virgil, whose poems are the great magazines, replete with every species of beauty and magnificence, particularly abounding with similes, which astonish, delight, and transport the reader. Every simile ought not only to be well adapted to the subject, but also to include every excellence of description, and to be coloured with the warmest tints of poetry. Nothing can be more happily hit off than the following in the Georgics, to which the poet compares Orpheus lamenting his lost Eurydice. Qualis populea marens Philomela sub umbrâ "So Philomela, from th' umbrageous wood, In strains melodious mourns her tender brood, 14 HORACE, Odes, I. 7, 15-19. 15 VIRGIL, Georgics, IV. 511-15. Here we not only find the most scrupulous propriety, and the happiest choice, in comparing the Thracian bard to Philomel the poet of the grove; but also the most beautiful description, containing a fine touch of the pathos, in which last particular indeed Virgil, in our opinion, excels all other poets, whether ancient or modern. One would imagine that nature had exhausted itself, in order to embellish the poems of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, with similes and metaphors. The first of these very often uses the comparison of the wind, the whirlwind, the hail, the torrent, to express the rapidity of his combatants; but when he comes to describe the velocity of the immortal horses that drew the chariot of Juno, he raises his ideas to the subject, and, as Longinus observes, measures every leap by the whole breadth of the horizon. Οσσον δ' ἠεροειδὲς ἀνὴρ ἴδεν ὀφθαλμοῖσιν, "For as a watchman from some rock on high O'er the wide main extends his boundless eye; The celerity of this goddess seems to be a favourite idea with the poet; for in another place, he compares it to the thought of a traveller revolving in his mind the different places he had seen, and passing through them in imagination more swift than the lightning flies from east to west. Homer's best similes have been copied by Virgil, and almost every succeeding poet, however they may have varied in the manner of expression. In the third book of the Iliad, Menelaus seeing Paris, is compared to a hungry lion espying a hind or goat. Ωστε λέων ἐχάρη, μεγάλῳ ἐπὶ σώματι κύρσας, 16 HOMER, Iliad, V. 770-72. "So joys the lion, if a branching deer In clanging arms he leaps upon the ground." 17 The Mantuan bard, in the tenth book of the Eneid, applies the same simile to Mezentius, when he beholds Acron in the battle. 66 Impastus stabulâ altâ leo ceu sæpe peragrans; (Suadet enim vesana fames), si fortè fugacem Conspexit capream, aut surgentem in cornua cervum "Then as a hungry lion, who beholds A gamesome goat who frisks about the folds, The prey lies panting underneath his paws; He fills his famish'd maw, his mouth runs o'er With unchew'd morsels, while he churns the gore." 18 - DRYDEN. The reader will perceive that Virgil has improved the simile in one particular, and in another fallen short of his original. The description of the lion shaking his mane, opening his hideous jaws distained with the blood of his prey, is great and picturesque; but on the other hand, he has omitted the circumstance of devouring it without being intimidated, or restrained by the dogs and the youths that surround him; a circumstance that adds greatly to our ideas of his strength, intrepidity, and importance. 18 VIRGIL, Æneid, X. 723-28. 17 HOMER, Iliad, III. 23 ff. XXI. SAMUEL JOHNSON. (1709-1784.) PREFACE TO SHAKESPEARE. [Written in 1765.] SHAKESPEARE with his excellencies has likewise faults, and faults sufficient to obscure and overwhelm any other merit. I shall show them in the proportion in which they appear to me, without envious malignity or superstitious veneration. No question can be more innocently discussed than a dead poet's pretensions to renown; and little regard is due to that bigotry which sets candour higher than truth. His first defect is that to which may be imputed most of the evil in books or in men. He sacrifices virtue to convenience, and is so much more careful to please than to instruct, that he seems to write without any moral purpose. From his writings, indeed, a system of social duty may be selected, for he that thinks reasonably must think morally; but his precepts and axioms drop casually from him; he makes no just distribution of good or evil, nor is always careful to show in the virtuous a disapprobation of the wicked; he carries his persons indifferently through right and wrong, and at the close dismisses them without further care, and leaves their examples to operate by chance. This fault the barbarity of his age cannot estimate; for it is always a writer's duty to make the world better, and justice is a virtue independent on time or place. The plots are often so loosely formed that a very slight consid、 eration may improve them, and so carelessly pursued that he |