In the same view, Homer, I think, may be justified in comparing the shouts of the Trojans in battle to the noise of cranes,* and to the bleating of a flock of sheep:† it is no objection that these are low images; for it was his intention to lessen the Trojans by opposing their noisy march to the silent and manly march of the Greeks. Addison,‡ describing the figure that men make in the sight of a superior being, takes opportunity to mortify their pride by comparing them to a swarm of pismires.

A comparison that has none of the good effects mentioned in this discourse, but is built upon common and trifling circumstances, makes a mighty silly figure:

Non sum nescius, grandia consilia a multis plerumque causis, ceu magna navigia a plurimis remis, impelli. Strada, de bello Belgico.

By this time, I imagine the different purposes of comparison, and the various impressions it makes on the mind, are sufficiently illustrated by proper examples. This was an easy task. It is more difficult to lay down rules about the propriety or impropriety of comparisons; in what circumstances they may be introduced, and in what circumstances they are out of place. It is evident, that a comparison is not proper on every occasion: a man when cool and sedate, is not disposed to poetical flights,

*Beginning of book 3.
Guardian, No. 153.

+ Book 4. 1. 498.

nor to sacrifice truth and reality to imaginary beauties far less is he so disposed when oppressed with care, or interested in some important transaction that engrosses him totally. On the other hand, a man, when elevated or animated by passion, is disposed to elevate or animate all his objects: he avoids familiar names, exalts objects by circumlocution and metaphor, and gives even life and voluntary action to inanimate beings. In this heat of mind, the highest poetical flights are indulged, and the boldest similies and metaphors relished.* But without soaring so high, the mind is frequently in a tone to relish chaste and moderate ornament; such as comparisons that set the principal object in a strong point of view, or that embellish and diversify the narration. In general, when by any animating passion, whether pleasant or painful, an impulse is given to the imagination, we are in that condition disposed to every sort of figurative expression, and in particular to comparisons. This in a great measure is evident from the comparisons already mentioned; and shall be further illustrated by other instances. Love, for example, in its infancy, rousing the imagination, prompts the heart to display itself in figurative language, and in similies :

Troilus. Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love, What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?

* It is accordingly observed by Longinus, in his Treatise of the Sublime, that the proper time for metaphor, is when the passions are so swelled as to hurry on like a torrent.

Her bed is, India; there she lies, a pearl:
Between our Ilium, and where she resides,
Let it be call'd the wild and wandering flood;
Ourself the merchant; and the sailing Pandar
Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.
Troilus and Cressida, Act 1. Sc. 1.

Again:

Come, gentle Night! come, loving black-brow'd Night!
Give me my Romeo; and when he shall die,
Take him, and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine,
That all the world shall be in love with Night,
And pay no worship to the garish Sun.

Romeo and Juliet, Act III. Sc. 2.

The dread of a misfortune, however eminent, involving always some doubt and uncertainty, agitates the mind and excites the imagination:

Wolsey.

Nay, then, farewell:

I've touch'd the highest point of all my greatness,
And from that full meridian of my glory

I haste now to my setting. I shall fall,
Like a bright exhalation in the evening,
And no man see me more.

Henry VIII. Act. III. Sc. 2.

present

But it will be a better illustration of the head, to give examples where comparisons are improperly introduced. I have had already occasion to observe, that similies are not the language of a man in his ordinary state of mind, despatching his daily and usual work. For that reason, the follow

ing speech of a gardener to his servants, is extremely improper :

Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricots,
Which like unruly children, make their sire
Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight:
Give some supportance to the bending twigs.
Go thou; and, like an executioner,
Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays,
That look too lofty in our commonwealth;
All must be even in our government.

Richard II. Act III. Sc. 4.

The fertility of Shakespeare's vein betrays him frequently into this error. There is the same impropriety in another simile of his :

Hero. Good Margaret, run thee into the parlour;
There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice;
Whisper her ear, and tell her, I and Ursula
Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse
Is all of her say that thou overheard'st us;
And bid her steal into the pleached bower,
Where honeysuckles, ripen'd by the sun,
Forbid the sun to enter; like to favourites
Made proud by princes, that advance their pride
Against that power that bred it.

Much ado about Nothing, Act III. Sc. 1.

Rooted grief, deep anguish, terror, remorse, de spair, and all the severe dispiriting passions, are declared enemies, perhaps not to figurative language in general, but undoubtedly to the pomp and solemnity of comparison. Upon that account, the simile pronounced by young Rutland, under

terror of death from an inveterate enemy, and praying mercy, is unnatural :

So looks the pent-up lion o'er the wretch
That trembles under his devouring paws;
And so he walks insulting o'er his prey,
And so he comes to rend his limbs asunder.
Ah, gentle Clifford, kill me with thy sword,
And not with such a cruel threat'ning look.

Third Part Henry VI. Act I. Sc. 3.

Nothing appears more out of place, nor more awkwardly introduced, than the following simile:

Lucia.

-Farewell, my Portius,

Farewell, though death is in the word, for-ever!

Portius. Stay, Lucia, stay; what dost thou say? for-ever! Lucia. Have I not sworn? If, Portius, thy success

Must throw thy brother on his fate, farewell.

Oh, how shall I repeat the word, for-ever?

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

-Thou must not go, my soul still hovers o'er thee,
And can't get loose.
Cato, Act III. Sc. 2.

Nor doth the simile which closes the first Act of the same tragedy make a better appearance; the situation there represented being too dispiriting for a simile. A simile is improper for one who dreads the discovery of a secret machination :

* This simile would have a fine effect pronounced by the chorus in a Greek tragedy.