That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel'd
The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,
And barbarism itself have pitied him.-Richard II. act 5. sc. 3.
Northumberland. How doth my son and brother?
Thou tremblest, and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so wo-begone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him, half his Troy was burn'd;
But Priam found the fire, ere he his tongue :
And I my Percy's death, ere thou report'st it.

Second Part, Henry IV. act 1. sc. 3.

Why, then I do but dream on sov'reignty,
Like one that stands upon a promontory,
And spies a far-off shore where he would tread,
Wishing his foot were equal with his eye,

And chides the sea that sunders him from thence,
Saying, he'll lave it dry to have his way:
So do I wish, the crown being so far off,

And so I chide the means that keep me from it,
And so (I say) I'll cut the causes off,
Flatt'ring my mind with things impossible.

Third Part, Henry VI. act 3. sc. 3.

Thou divine Nature! how thyself thou blazon'st
In these two princely boys! they are as gentle
As zephyrs blowing below the violet,

Not wagging his sweet head; and yet as rough
(Their royal blood inchaf'd) as the rudest wind,
That by the top doth take the mountain pine,

And make him stoop to th' vale.-Cymbeline, act 4. sc. 4.

Why did not I pass away in secret, like the flower of the rock that lifts its fair head unseen, and strows its withered leaves on the blast?-Fingal.

There is a joy in grief when peace dwells with the sorrowful. But they are wasted with mourning, O daughter of Toscar, and their days are few. They fall away like the flower on which the sun looks in his strength, after the mildew has passed over it, and its head is heavy with the drops of night.-Fingal.

The sight obtained of the city of Jerusalem by the Christian army, compared to that of land discovered after a long voyage, Tasso's Gierusal., canto 3. st. 4. The fury of Rinaldo subsiding when not opposed, to that of wind or water when it has a free passage, canto 20. st. 58.

As words convey but a faint and obscure notion of great numbers, a poet, to give a lively notion of the object he describes with regard to number, does well to compare it to what is familiar and commonly known. Thus Homer compares the Grecian army in point of number to a swarm of bees; in another passaget he compares it to that profusion of leaves and flowers which appear in the spring, or of insects in a summer's evening: and Milton,

As when the potent rod
Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day,
'Wav'd round the coast, up-call'd a pitchy cloud
Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,
That o'er the realm of impious Pharoah hung
Like night, and darkened all the land of Nile:
So numberless were those bad angels seen,
Hovering on wing under the cope of hell,

'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires.-Paradise Lost, b. 1. Such comparisons have, by some writers,* been condemned for the lowness of the images introduced; but surely without reason, for, with regard to numbers, they put the principal subject in a strong light.

The foregoing comparisons operate by resemblance; others have the same effect by contrast.

York. I am the last of Noble Edward's sons,

Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first:
In war, was never lion rag'd more fierce ;
In peace, was never gentle lamb more mild;
Than was that young and princely gentleman.
His face thou hast, for even so look'd he,
Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours.
But when he frown'd it was against the French,
And not against his friends. His noble hand
Did win what he did spend; and spent not that
Which his triumphant father's hand had won.
His hands were guilty of no kindred's blood,
But bloody with the enemies of his kin.

Oh, Richard! York is too far gone with grief,

Or else he never would compare between.-Richard II. act 2. sc. 3. Milton has a peculiar talent in embellishing the principal subject by associating it with others that are agreeable; which is the third end of a comparison. Similies of this kind have, beside, a separate effect; they diversify the narration by new images that are not strictly necessary to the comparison; they are short episodes, which, without drawing us from the principal subject, afford great delight by their beauty and variety :

He scarce had ceas'd, when the superior fiend

Was moving toward the shore; his pond'rous shield,

Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,

Behind him cast; the broad circumference

Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb

Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views

At ev'ning from the top of Fesole,

Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,

Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.-Millon, b. 1.

-Thus far these, beyond

Compare of mortal prowess, yet observ'd

Their dread commander. He, above the rest

In shape and gesture proudly eminent,
Stood like a tow'r; his form had yet not lost
All her original brightness, nor appear'd
Less than archangel ruin'd, and th' excess
Of glory obscur'd: as when the sun new-risen

* See Vida Poetic, lib. 2. 1. 282.

Looks through the horizontal misty air
Shorn of his beams; or from behind the moon
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds
On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs.-Milton, b. 1.

As when a vulture on Imaus bred,

Whose snowy ridge the roving Tartar bounds,
Dislodging from a region scarce of prey

To gorge the flesh of lambs, or yeanling kids,
On hills where flocks are fed, flies toward the springs
Of Ganges or Hydaspes, Indian streams,

But in his way lights on the barren plains

Of Sericana, where Chineses drive

With sails and winds their cany waggons light:

So on this windy sea of land, the fiend

Walk'd up and down alone, bent on his prey.-Milton, b. 1.
-Yet higher than their tops

The verd'rous wall of paradise up-sprung:

Which to our general sire gave prospect large
Into his nether empire neighbouring round.
And higher than that wall, a circling row
Of goodliest trees laden with fairest fruit,
Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue,
Appear'd, with gay enamell'd colours mix'd,
On which the sun more glad impress'd his beams,
Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow,

When God had shower'd the earth; so lovely seem'd
That landscape and of pure now purer air

:

Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires

Vernal delight and joy, able to drive

All sadness but despair: now gentle gales
Fanning their odorif'rous wings dispense

Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils. As when to them who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow
Sabean odour from the spicy shore

Of Araby the Blest; with such delay

Well-pleas'd they slack their course, and many a league

Cheer'd with the grateful smell, old Ocean smiles.-Milton, b. 4.

With regard to similies of this kind, it will readily occur to the reader, that when a resembling subject is once properly introduced in a simile, the mind is transitorily amused with the new object, and is not dissatisfied with the slight interruption. Thus, in fine weather, the momentary excursions of a traveller for agreeable prospects or elegant buildings, cheer his mind, relieve him from the languor of uniformity, and without much lengthening his journey, in reality, shorten it greatly in appearance.

Next, of comparisons that aggrandize or elevate. These affect us more than any other sort; the reason of which may be gathered from the chapter of Grandeur and Sublimity; and, without reason. ing, will be evident from the following instances:

As when a flame the winding valley fills,
And runs on crackling shrubs between the hills,
Then o'er the stubble, up the mountain flies,
Fires the high woods, and blazes to the skies,
This way and that, the spreading torrent roars ;
So sweeps the hero through the wasted shores.

Around him wide, immense destruction pours,

And earth is delug'd with the sanguine show'rs.—Iliad, xx. 569.
Through blood, through death, Achilles still proceeds,
O'er slaughter'd heroes, and o'er rolling steeds.

As when avenging flames with fury driv'n
On guilty towns exert the wrath of Heav'n,
The pale inhabitants, some fall, some fly,
And the red vapours purple all the sky:

So rag'd Achilles; Death and dire dismay,

And toils, and terrors, fill'd the dreadful day.-Iliad, xxi. 605.

Methinks, King Richard and myself should meet

With no less terror than the elements

Of fire and water, when their thund'ring shock,

At meeting, tears the cloudy cheeks of heav'n.-Richard II. act 3. sc. 5.

As rusheth a foamy stream from the dark shady steep of Cromla, when thunder is rolling above, and dark brown night rests on the hill: so fierce, so vast, so terrible, rush, forward the sons of Erin. The chief, like a whale of Ocean followed by all its billows, pours valour forth as a stream, rolling its might along the shore.-Fingal, b. 1.

As roll a thousand waves to a rock, so Swaran's host came on; as meets a rock a thousand waves, so Inisfail met Swaran.-Ibid.

I beg peculiar attention to the following simile for a reason that shall be mentioned.

Thus breathing death, in terrible array,

The close compacted legions urg'd their way:
Fierce they drove on, impatient to destroy;
Troy charg'd the first, and Hector first of Troy.
As from some mountain's craggy forehead torn,
A rock's round fragment flies with fury borne,
(Which from the stubborn stone a torrent rends)
Precipitate the pond'rous mass descends;
From steep to steep the rolling ruin bounds:
At every shock the crackling wood resounds;
Still gath'ring force, it smokes, and, urg'd amain,
Whirls, leaps, and thunders down, impetuous to the plain :
There stops-So Hector. Their whole force he prov'd:
Resistless when he raged; and when he stopp'd, unmov'd.

Iliad, xliii. 187.

The image of a falling rock is certainly not elevating ;* and yet undoubtedly the foregoing simile fires and swells the mind; it is grand, therefore, if not sublime. And the following simile will afford additional evidence, that there is a real, though nice distinction between these two feelings :

So saying, a noble stroke he lifted high,

Which hung not, but so swift with tempest fell
On the proud crest of Satan, that no sight,
Nor motion of swift thought, less could his shield
Such ruin intercept. Ten paces huge

He back recoil'd; the tenth on bended knee
His massy spear upstaid; as if on earth
Winds under ground or waters forcing way,
Sidelong had push'd a mountain from his seat
Half-sunk with all his pines.-Milton, b. 6.

* See chap. 4.

A comparison by contrast may contribute to grandeur or elevation, no less than by resemblance; of which the following comparison of of Lucan is a remarkable instance :

Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa Catoni.

Considering that the Heathen deities possessed a rank but one de gree above that of mankind, I think it would not be easy, by a single expression, to exalt more one of the human species, than is done in this comparison. I am sensible, at the same time, that such a comparison among Christians, who entertain more exalted notions of the Deity, would justly be reckoned extravagant and absurd.

The last article mentioned is that of lessening or depressing a hated or disagreeable object; which is effectually done by resembling it to any thing low or despicable. Thus Milton, in his description of the rout of the rebel angels, happily expresses their terror and dismay in the following simile:

-As a herd

Of goats or timorous flock together throng'd,
Drove them before him thunder-struck, pursu'd
With terrors and with furies to the bounds
And crystal wall of heav'n, which, op'ning wide,
Roll'd inward, and a spacious gap disclos'd
Into the wasteful deep: the monstrous sight
Struck them with horror backward, but far worse

Urg'd them behind; headlong themselves they threw
Down from the verge of heav'n.—Milton, b. 6.

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 dif ficult 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, 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 Beginning of book 3. Guardian, No. 153.

+ Book 4. 1. 498.