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Pars aptare locum tecto, et concludere sulco.
Jura magistratusque legunt, sanctumque senatum.
Hic portus alii effodiunt: hic alta theatris
Fundamenta locant alii, immanesque columnas
Rupibus excidunt, scenis decora alta futuris.
Qualis apes æstatę nova per florea rura
Exercet sub sole labor, cum gentis adultos
Educunt fœtus, aut cum liquentia mella
Stipant, et dulci distendunt nectare cellas,
Aut onera accipiunt venientum, aut agmine facto
Ignavum fucos pecus a præsepibus arcent.
Fervet opus, redolentque thymo fragrantia mella.
Eneid. i. 427.

To describe bees gathering honey as resembling the builders of Carthage, would have a much better effect.*

Tum vero Teucri incumbunt, et littore celsas
Deducunt toto naves: natat uncta carina;
Frondentesque ferunt remos, et robora sylvis
Infabricata, fugæ studio.

Migrantes cernas, totaque ex urbe ruentes.

Ac veluti ingentem formicæ farris acervum
Cum populant, hyemis memores, tectoque reponunt:
It nigrum campis agmen, prædamque per herbas
Convectant calle angusto: pars grandia trudunt
Obnixa frumenta humeris: pars agmina cogunt,
Castigantque moras: opere omnis semita fervet.

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,
Immensam sine more furit lymphata per urbem :
Ceu quondam torto volitans sub verbere turbo,
Quem pueri magno in gyro vacua atria circum
Intenti ludo exercent. Ille actus habena
Curvatis fertur spatiis: stupet inscia turba,
Impubesque manus, mirata volubile buxum;
Dant animos plaga. Non cursu segnior illo
Per medias urbes agitur, populosque feroces.

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.
Ac veluti lentis Cyclopes fulmina massis

Cum properant: alii taurinis follibus auras
Accipiunt, redduntque: alii stridentia tingunt

Æra lacu; gemit impositis incudibus Ætna:
Illi inter sese magna vi brachia tollunt
In numerum; versantque tenaci forcipe ferrum.
Non aliter (si parva licet componere magnis)
Cecropias innatus apes amor urget habendi,
Munere quamque suo. Grandævis oppida curæ,

Et munire favos, et Dædala fingere tecta.
At fessæ multâ referunt se nocte minores,
Crura thymo plenæ pascuntur et arbuta passim,
Et glaucas salices, casiamque crocumque rubentem,
Et pinguem tiliam, et ferrugineos hyacinthos.
Omnibus una quies operum, labor omnibus unus.
Georgic. iv. 169.

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 swift, and heavy, falls each thund'ring blow.
As when in Ætna's caves the giant brood,
The one-ey'd servants of the Lemnian god,
In order round the burning anvil stand,

And forge, with weighty strokes, the forked brand;
The shaking hills their fervid toils confess,
And echoes rattling through each dark recess :
So rag'd the fight.

Epigoniad, B. 8.

Tum Bitian ardentem oculis animisque frementem ;
Non jaculo, neque enim jaculo vitam ille dedisset;
Sed magnum stridens contorta falarica venit
Fulminis acta modo, quam nec duo taurea terga,

Nec duplici squama lorica fidelis et auro
Sustinuit: collapsa ruunt immania membra:
Dat tellus gemitum, et clypeum super intonat ingens.
Qualis in Euboico Baiarum littore quondam
Saxea pila cadit, magnis quam molibus ante
Constructam jaciunt ponto: sic illa ruinam
Prona trahit, penitusque vadis illisa recumbit:
Miscent se maria, et nigræ attolluntur arenæ :
Tum sonitu Prochyta alta tremit, durumque cubile
Inarime Jovis imperiis imposta Typhoëo.

Eneid. ix. 703.

Loud as a bull makes hill and valley ring,
So roar'd the lock when it releas'd the spring.

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
Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke
Before he was what thou would'st have him be?
And now being trimm'd up in thine own desires,
Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him,
That thou provok'st thyself to cast him up.
And so, thou common dog, did'st thou disgorge
Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard,

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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.

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