must be particularly attentive to end with the same kind of metaphor with which we have begun. Some, when they begin the figure with a tempest, conclude it with a conflagration; which forms a shameful inconsistency.' Example 1. The charm dissolves apace, And as the morning steals upon the night Analysis. What an inconsistent groupe of objects is brought together in this passage, which professes to describe persons recovering their judgment after the enchantment, that held them, was dissolved so many ill-sorted things are here joined, that the mind can see nothing clearly; the morning stealing upon the darkness, and, at the same time, melting it; the senses of men chasing fumes, ignorant fumes and fumes that mantle. Example 2. So again in Romeo and Juliet: as glorious, As is a winged messenger from heaven, Analysis. Here, the angel is represented as, at one moment, bestriding the clouds, and sailing upon the air; and upon the bosom of the air too; which forms such a confused picture, that it is impossible for any imagination to comprehend it. Example 3. More correct writers than Shakspeare sometimes fall into this error of mixing metaphors. I bridle my struggling muse with pain, Analysis. The muse, figured as a horse, may be bridled; but when we speak of launching, we make it a ship; and by no force of imagination, can it be supposed both a horse and a ship at one moment; bridled, to hinder it from launching. Were we to try this metaphor by Addison's own rule, namely, to suppose the figure painted, it would appear more grotesque than any of Hogarth's subjects. That the muse, from her connexion with the winged horse Pegasus, might sometimes require the bridle, is not perhaps very unnatural. But were she painted in an attitude in which the bridle prevented her from launching or jumping into the sea; or "Id imprimis est custodiendum, ut quo genere cœperis translationis, hoc finias. Multi autem cùm initium a tempestate sumserunt, incendio aut ruina finiunt; quæ est inconsequentia rerum fœdissima." + Addison. were a picture to exhibit a ship launched, not into the sea, but, upon a sheet of paper, or into a song, the spectator would feel something of the disposition inspired by the monster of Horace, Spectatum admissi risum teneatis amici. But the muse is a goddess. Now to bridle a goddess is no very delicate idea. But why must she be bridled? because she longs to launch; an act which was never hindered by a bridle. And whither will she launch? into a nobler strain. She is in the first line a goddess, or a horse, in the second a boat or a javetin (for both may be launched) and the care of the poet is to keep his horse, or his boat, or his spear from singing. 270. Addison's rule is a good one for examining the propriety of metaphors, when we doubt whether or not they be of the mixed kind; namely, that we should try to form a picture upon them, and consider how the parts would agree, and what sort of figure the whole would present, when delineated with a pencil. By this means we should become sensible, whether inconsistent circumstances were mixed, and a monstrous image thereby produced, as in all those faulty instances which have been given; or whether the object was throughout presented in one natural and consistent point of view. 271. As metaphors ought never to be mixed; so, in the sixth place, we should avoid crowding them together on the same object. Supposing each of the metaphors to be preserved distinct, yet, if they be heaped on one another, they produce a confusion somewhat of the same kind with the mixed metaphor. Example 1." There is a time, when factions, by the vehemence of their fermentation, stun, and disable one another."* Analysis. The noble author represents factions, first, as discordant fluids, the mixture of which produces violent fermentation; but he quickly relinquishes this view of them, and imputes to them operations and effects, consequent only on the supposition of their being solid bodies in motion. They maim and dismember one another by forcible collisions Examdle 2. "Those whose minds are dull and heavy do not easily penetrate into the folds and intricacies of an affair, and therefore can only scum off what they find at the top."+ Analysis. That the writer had a right to represent his affair, whatever it was, either as a bale of cloth or a fluid, nobody can deny. But the laws of common sense and perspicuity demanded of him to keep it either the one or the other, because it could not be both at the same time. It was absurd, therefore, after he had penetrated the folds of it, an operation competent only on the supposition of its being some pliable body, to speak of scumming off what floated on the surface, which could not be performed unless it was a fluid. 272. The only other rule concerning metaphors, which we shall add, is, that they be not too far pursued. If the resemblance on which the figure is founded, be long dwelt upon, and carried into all its minute circumstances, we make an allegory instead of a metaphor; we tire the reader, who soon becomes weary of this play of fancy; and we render our discourse obscure. This is called, straining a metaphor. Critick 1. Cowley deals in this to excess; and to this error is owing, in a great measure, that intricacy and harshness, in his figurative language, which we before remarked. (Art. 207.) 2. Lord Shaftesbury is sometimes guilty of pursuing his metaphors too far. Fond, to a high degree, of every decoration of style, when once he had hit upon a figure that pleased him, he was extremely loth to part with it. 3. Dr. Young also often trespasses in the same way. The merit, however, of this writer in figurative language is great, and deserves' to be remarked. No writer, ancient or modern, had a stronger imagination than Dr. Young, or one more fertile in figures of every kind. His metaphors are often new, and often natural and beantiful. But his imagination was strong and rich, rather than delicate and correct. Hence, in his Night Thoughts, there prevail an obscurity, and a hardness in his style. The metaphors are frequently too bold, and frequently too far pursued; the reader is dazzled rather than enlightened; and kept constantly on the stretch to keep pace with the author. 4. Of all the English authors, none is so happy in his metaphors as Addison. His imagination was neither so rich nor so strong as Dr. Young's; but far more chaste and delicate. Perspicuity, natural grace, and ease, always distinguish his figures. They are neither harsh nor strained; they never appear to have been studied or sought after; but seem to rise of their own accord from the subject, and constantly embellish it. Scholia 1. Metaphors expressed by single words may, it seems, be introduced on every occasion, from the most careless effusions of conversation, to the highest and most passionate expression of P tragedy; and on all these occasions they are, perhaps, the most beautiful and significant language that can be employed. There is no doubt of the justness of this observation with regard to any species of speaking or writing, except that which denotes violent passion, concerning which the practice of the most correct performers is not uniform; some of them rejecting, others admitting, the use of such figures. 2. Short metaphors appear with perfect propriety in oratory, memoirs, essays, novels, but partiularly in history. The historian is scarcely permitted to indulge in hunting after comparisons; he is seldom allowed to introduce the more elevated and poetical figures of apostrophe and personification; he is not even at liberty to amuse with metaphors extended to many circumstances of resemblance, but to those expressed in single or few words, he has the most approved access. Such ornaments are the proper impliments of a vigorous and decisive mind, which has leisure only to saatch a ray of emballishment from a passing object, without turning aside from its capital pursuit. The superior attention of the historian to the matter of which he treats, the dignity and gravity of his style, which ought to correspond to the importance of his matter, call upon him to communicate his thoughts in the most correct, perspicuous, and forcible language; and such, in a serene state of the mind, is the language of short metaphor. 3. Both Shakspeare and Otway conceived short metaphors to be perfectly consistent with the most violent agitations of passion. It is vain to appeal to the authority of other tragic poets. They are unanimous for the use of similar situations. Many of them, indeed, have so overloaded their pathetic scenes with this brilliant ornament, that it obscures the meaning, diminishes the impression, and sometimes disgusts the reader. 4. But extended metaphors, which chiefly amuse the imagination by a great variety of pretty and pleasant resemblances, are much more circumscribed in their appearance. They are too refined to occur in conversation, or on any occasion that allows not time for recollection, and for tracing similitudes which are at least so remote and unexpected as to surprise and captivate. They present themselves with perfect grace, in pulpit-oratory, in political writings, in works of criticism, and in essays. But their peculiar province is descriptive poetry, and the dispassionate parts of epic. They are inconsistent with violent passion, and are seldom introduced with success into tragedy. They are calculated entirely to please the imagination. They interfere with all the strong feelings of the heart. The mind that can either utter or relish them may be gay and elevated, but must be composed and tranquil. Under the pressure of deep distress, they are disgusting and intolerable. CHAPTER III. COMPARISONS OR SIMILES. 273. COMPARISONS or similes differ chiefly from metaphors in the vigour of imagination with which they are conceived. In the use of metaphors, we suppose the primary object transformed into the resembling one. In the use of comparisons we soar not so high, but content ourselves with remarking similitude merely. Illus. 1. In a comparisons, there should be found something new or surprising, in order to please and illustrate. There is nothing new or surprising in the resemblance of the individuals of the same species, as when we say, one man, or one horse, or one oak, is like another; because these individuals are formed by nature similar, and no comparison instituted between them can be supposed to produce any novelty or surprise. To find, then, resemblances which are new or surprising, and which consequently may produce pleasure or illustration, we must search for them where they are not commonly to be expected, between things of different species. Example. If, for instance, I discover a resemblance between a man and a horse in swiftness, between a man and an oak in strength, or between a man and a rock in steadiness, such resemblances, being new, and generally unobserved, excite surprise and pleasure, and improve my conceptions of the swiftness, strength, and stead iness of the man. Corol. Hence results the first general principle concerning good comparisons of resemblance; they must be drawn from one species of things to another, and never instituted between things of the same species. १ Illus. 2. Again, when we place a great object opposite to a little one, a beautiful picture to an indifferent one, or one shade of the same colour to another; we are surprised to find, that things which seemed so much alike differ so widely. We conceive the beauties and defects of the objects contrasted greater, perhaps than they really are, at least much greater than they appear when surveyed apart. Corol. Hence is derived the second principle respecting comparisons, that contrasts must be instituted between things of the same species, because no pleasure or illustration can result from finding dissimilitude between things naturally different. Illus. 3. As it is necessary there should be resemblance in all comparisons, it is obvious that the objects of different senses cannot furnish foundation for them. There is no resemblance between a sound and a colour, a smell and a surface of velvet." |