The following simile has not any one beauty to recommend it. The subject is Amata, the wife of King Latinus. Tum vero infelix, ingentibus excita monstris, Eneid, vii. 376. This simile seems to border upon the burlesque. An error, opposite to the former, is the introducing a resembling image, so elevated or great as to bear no proportion to the principal subject. Their remarkable disparity, seizing the mind, never fails to depress the principal subject by contrast, instead of raising it by resemblance: and if the disparity be very great, the simile degenerates into burlesque; nothing being more ridiculous than to force an object out of its proper rank in nature, by equalling it with one greatly superior or greatly inferior. This will be evident from the following comparisons. Fervet opus, redolentque thymo fragrantia mella. Cum properant; alii taurinis follibus auras In numerum; versantque tenaci forcipe ferrum. Et munire favos, et Dædala fingere tecta. Et pinguem tiliam, ferrugineos hyacinthos. Omnibus una quies operum, labor omuibus unus. Georgic. iv. 169. The Cyclopes make a better figure in the follow ing simile; -The Thracian leader prest, With eager courage, far before the rest; Him Ajax met, inflam'd with equal rage: Between the wond'ring hosts the chiefs engage; Their weighty weapons round their heads they throw, And swift, and heavy, falls each thund'ing blow. As when in Etna's caves the giant brood, The one-eyed servants of the Lemnian god, In order round the burning anvil stand, And forge, with weighty strokes, the forked brand; And echoes rattling through each dark recess : Epigoniad, b. viii. Tum Bitian ardentem oculis animisue frementem; Dat tellus gemitum, et clypeum super intonat ingens. Eneid, ix. 703. Loud as a bull makes hill and valley ring, Odyssey, xxi 51. Such a simile upon the simplest of all actions, that of opening a door, is pure burlesque. A writer of delicacy will avoid drawing his comparisons from any image that is nauseous, ugly, or remarkably disagreeable: for however strong the resemblance may be, more will be lost than gained by such comparison. Therefore I cannot help condemning, though with some reluctance, the following simile, or rather metaphor: O thou fond many! with what loud applause Second Part, Henry IV. Act 1. Sc. 6. K The strongest objection that can lie against a comparison is, that it consists in words only, not in sense. Such false coin, or bastard wit, does extremely well in burlesque; but is far below the dignity of the epic, or of any serious composition: The noble sister of Poplicola, The moon of Rome; chaste as the icicle Coriolanus, Act v. Sc. 3. There is evidently no resemblance between an icicle and a woman, chaste or unchaste; but chastity is cold in a metaphorical sense, and an icicle is cold in a proper sense: and this verbal resemblance, in the hurry and glow of composing, has been thought a sufficient foundation for the simile. Such phantom similes are mere witticisms, which ought to have no quarter, except where purposely introduced to provoke laughter. Lucian, in his dissertation upon history, talking of a certain author, makes the following comparison, which is verbal merely : This author's descriptions are so cold that they surpass the Caspian snow, and all the ice of the north. Virgil has not escaped this puerility: Galathæn thymo mihi dulcior Hyblæ. Bucol. vii. 37. Ego Sardois videar tibi amarior herbis. Gallo, cujus amor tantum mihi crescit in horas, Nor Tasso, in his Aminta: Picciola e' l'ape, e fa col picciol morso E cosi immedicabili le piaghe. Ibid 41. Bucol, x. S7, Act II. Sc. 1. Nor Boileau, the chastest of all writers, and that even in his art of poetry. Ainsi tel autrefois, qu'on vit avec Faret Chant. I. 1. 21. Mais allons voir le Vrai, jusqu'en sa source même. But for their spirits and souls As fish are in a pond. Boileau, Satire, xi. Second Part, Henry IV. Act I. Sc. s. Queen. The pretty vaulting sea refus'd to drown me; Knowing, that thou would'st have me drown'd on shore; With tears as salt as sea, through thy unkindness. Second Part Henry VI. Act III. Sc. 6. Here there is no manner of resemblance but in the word drown; for there is no real resemblance between being drown'd at sea, and dying of grief at land. But perhaps this sort of tinsel wit may have a propriety in it, when used to express an affected, not a real passion, which was the Queen's case. Pope has several similes of the same stamp. I shall transcribe one or two from the Essay on Man, the gravest and most instructive of all his perform ances: And hence one master passion in the breast, Epist. ii. 1. 131, And again, talking of this same ruling or master passion: Nature its mother, Habit is its nurse; As heav'n's bless'd beam turns vinegar more sour. Ibid. 1. 45. Lord Bolingbroke, speaking of historians: Where their sincerity as to fact is doubtful, we strike out truth by the confrontation of different accounts; as we strike out sparks of fire by the collison of flints and steel. Let us vary the phrase a very little, and there will not remain a shadow of resemblance. Thus, We discover truth by the confrontation of different accounts; as we strike out sparks of fire by the collision of flints and steel. Racine makes Pyrrhus say to Andromaque, 21a VOL. II. |