ject, between its figurative and natural appear ance: But now from gath'ring clouds destruction pours, Dispensary, canto iii. To thee, the world its present homage pays, Pope's Imitation of Horace, b. ii. Oui, sa pudeur n'est que franche grimace, Moliere, l'Etourdi, Act III. Sc 2. Et son feu, depourû de sense et de lecture, Boileau, l'Art Poetique, Chant. iii. l. 319. Dryden, in his dedication of the translation of Juvenal, says, When thus, as I may say, before the use of the loadstone, or knowledge of the compass, I was sailing in a vast ocean, without other help than the pole-star of the ancients, and the rules of the French stage among the moderns, &c. There is a time when factions, by the vehemence of their own fermentation, stun and disable one another. Bolingbroke. This fault of jumbling the figure and plain expression into one confused mass, is not less common in allegory than in metaphor. Take the following examples: -Heu! quoties fidem, Mutatosque Deos flebit, et aspera Emirabitur insolens, Qui nunc te fruitur credulus aureâ: Qui semper vacuam, semper amabilem Sperat, nescius auræ Fallacis. Horat. Carm. I. i. ode. 1. Pour moi sur cette mer, qu'ici bas nous courons, Lord Halifax, speaking of the ancient fabulists; "They (says he) wrote in signs, and spoke in pa"rables all their fables carry a double meaning; "the story is one and entire; the characters the same throughout; not broken or changed, and "always conformable to the nature of the creature "they introduce. They never tell you, that the ، 66 dog which snapp'd at a shadow, lost his troop of "horse; that would be unintelligible. This is his "(Dryden's) new way of telling a story, and con"founding the moral and the fable together." After instancing from the hind and panther, he goes on thus: "What relation has the hind to our Sa"viour: or what notion have we of a panther's "Bible? If you say he means the church, how "does the church feed on lawns, or range in the "forest? Let it be always a church, or always a "cloven-footed beast, for we cannot bear his shift66 ing the scene every line." A few words more upon allegory. Nothing gives greater pleasure than this figure, when the representative subject bears a strong analogy, in all its circumstances, to that which is represented ; but the choice is seldom so lucky; the analogy being generally so faint and obscure, as to puzzle and not please. An allegory is still more difficult in painting than in poetry; the former can show no resemblance but what appears to the eye; the latter hath many other resources for showing the resemblance. And therefore, with respect to what the Abbe Du Bos* terms mixt allegorical *Reflections sur la Poesie, vol. i. sect. 24. compositions, these may do in poetry; because, in writing, the allegory can easily be distinguished from the historical part: no person, for example, mistakes Virgil's Fame for a real being. But such a mixture in a picture is intolerable; because in a picture the objects must appear all of the same kind, wholly real or wholly emblematical. For this reason, the history of Mary de Medicis, in the palace of Luxembourg, painted by Rubens, is unpleasant by a perpetual jumble of real and allegorical personages, which produce a discordance of parts, and an obscurity upon the whole witness in particular, the tablature representing the arrival of Mary de Medicis at Marseilles: where, together with the real personages, the Nereids and Tritons appear sounding their shells: such a mixture of fiction and reality in the same group, is strangely absurd. The picture of Alexander and Roxana, described by Lucian, is gay and fanciful; but it suffers by the allegorical figures. It is not in the wit of man to invent an allegorical representation deviating farther from any shadow of resemblance, than one exhibited by Lewis XIV. anno 1664; in which an enormous chariot, intended to represent that of the sun, is dragged along, surrounded with men and women, representing the four ages of the world, the celestial signs, the seasons, the hours, &c. a monstrous composition, suggested probably by Guido's tablature of Aurora, and still more absurd. In an allegory as well as in a metaphor, terms ought to be chosen that properly and literally are applicable to the representative subject: nor ought any circumstance to be added that is not proper to the representative subject, however justly it may be applicable properly or figuratively to the principal. The following allegory is therefore faulty: Ferus et Cupido, Semper ardentes acuens sagittas Cote cruenta. Horat. I. i. ode 8. For though blood may suggest the cruelty of love, it is an improper or immaterial circumstance in the representative subject: water, not blood, is proper for a whetstone. We proceed to the next head, which is, to examine in what circumstance these figures are proper, in what improper. This inquiry is not altogether superseded by what is said upon the same subject in the chapter of Comparisons; because upon trial it will be found, that a short metaphor or allegory may be proper, where a simile, drawn out to a greater length, and in its nature more solemn, would scarce be relished. And first, a metaphor, like a simile, is excluded from common conversation, and from the description of ordinary incidents. Second, in expressing any severe passion that wholly occupies the mind, metaphor is improper. For which reason the following speech of Macbeth is faulty. Methought I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more! Act II. Sc. 3. The following example, of deep despair, beside the highly figurative style, hath more the air of raving than of sense : Calista. Is it the voice of thunder, or my father? Madness! Confusion! let the storm come on, Let the tumultuous roar drive all upon me, Fair Penitent, Act IV. The metaphor I next introduce, is sweet and lively, but it suits not a fiery temper inflamed with passion: parables are not the language of wrath venting itself without restraint. Chamont. You took her up a little tender flower, Where the sun always shines: there long she flourish'd, Cropt this fair rose, and rifled all its sweetness, Orphan, Act IV. The following speech, full of imagery, is not natural in grief and dejection of mind: Gonsalez. O my son! from the blind dotage Of a father's fondness these ills arose. For thee I've been ambitious, base and bloody; For thee I've plung'd into the sea of sin; Stemming the tide with only one weak hand, While t'other bore the crown (to wreathe thy brow,) Whose weight has sunk me e'er I reach'd the shore. Mourning Bride, Act V. Sc. 6. There is an enchanting picture of deep distress in Macbeth,* where Macduff is represented lamenting his wife and children, inhumanly murdered by the tyrant. Stung to the heart with the news, he questions the messenger over and over: not that he doubted the fact, but that his heart revolted against so cruel a misfortune. After struggling *Act IV. Sc. 6. |