Pars aptare locum tecto, et concludere sulco. To describe bees gathering honey as resembling the builders of Carthage, would have a much better effect.* Tum vero Teucri incumbunt, et littore celsas Migrantes cernas, totaque ex urbe ruentes. Ac veluti ingentem formicæ farris acervum Eneid. iv. 397. And accordingly Demetrius Phalerius (of Elocution, sect. 85.) observes, that it has a better effect to compare small things to great, than great things to small. 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, Æneid. 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 Æra lacu; gemit impositis incudibus Ætna: Et munire favos, et Dædala fingere tecta. The Cyclopes make a better figure in the following 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 forge, with weighty strokes, the forked brand; Epigoniad, B. 8. Tum Bitian ardentem oculis animisque frementem ; Nec duplici squama lorica fidelis et auro 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 : 1 O thou fond many! with what loud applause And now thou would'st eat thy dead vomit up, And howl'st to find it. Second Part Henry IV. Act 1. Sc. 3. 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 That's curded by the frost from purest snow, And hangs on Dian's temple. 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 similies 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: Galathæa thymo mihi dulcior Hyblæ. Bucol. vii. 37. |