Mean while the troops, beneath Patroclus' care,
Invade the Trojans, and commence the war.
As wafps, provok'd by children in their play,
Pour from their manfions by the broad high-way,
In fwarms the guiltless traveller engage,
Whet all their stings, and call forth all their rage:
All rife in arms, and with a gen'ral cry
Affert their waxen domes, and buzzing progeny.
Thus from the tents the fervent legion fwarms,
So loud their clamours, and fo keen their arms.
ILIAD, BOOK XVI. 312.

For the fame reason, if we intend to give an agreeable reprefentation of any object, we should carefully avoid comparing it to any thing disagreeable or disgusting.

It is, therefore, an useful general rule, that no object should be compared to any thing but what is, in point of greatness or dignity, of nearly equal rank with itself; and that, in grave and ferious compofition, all comparisons fhould be rather above than below the rank of the object to be illuftrated. To compare a grand object to a low one, as will be obferved hereafter, makes the burlefque; and to compare a low object to a grand one, makes the mock-heroic.

It hardly needs be mentioned, in this place, that in no fimile should any object be introduced that is not well known: for if the allufion be obfcure, how is the subject illuftrated by it?

As the use of comparisons is to give strength and colour to ideas, comparisons that are merely verbal are certainly abfurd in all serious compofitions. To try whether any be fo, change the terms for others that are fynonymous to them. By this means we difcover the following comparison in Shakespeare to be merely ver

bal. "In breaking oaths he is ftronger than Hercules:" becaufe, if we read, In forfwearing himself he is stronger than Hercules, there is not the least appearance of fimilitude in the two ideas left.

But the fame reafon will not lead us to condemn thofe comparifons which are termed figurative: for, if ideas have obtained the fame name on account of their fimilarity, the one may really illuftrate the other. Of this nature are many comparisons in Virgil, Ovid, and all the ancient claffics; as alfo in Pope, and others the most correct of our modern poets. Thus Galatea, in Virgil, is faid to be sweeter than the honey of Hybla. In this case, since the object of the paffion of love hath obtained the name of weet, from its raising in us fenfations fimilar to those excited by things which affect the external tafte with the fenfe of fweetness, we are certainly affifted to conceive more ftrongly of the pleasure the fpeaker took in the object of his love, by his comparing it to the sweetness of honey.

Indeed, comparisons of this kind occur fo frequently in the most serious writers, of all nations, and all ages, that from this circumftance only I think we may reasonably conclude there is a foundation for them in nature. The Pfalmift David fays, that "the law of God was fweeter to him than honey and the honey“comb;" and that "the poifon of afps was under the tongue "of his enemies."

However, as we probably catch the firft hint of these comparifons from the words, they may lead an incautious writer into those comparisons which are merely verbal..

LECTURE

LECTURE XXII.

Of the Nature of METAPHORS.

A con

Metaphor hath already been defined, to be a fimile

tracted to its smallest dimenfions. Hence, in using metaphors, the mind makes the leaft fenfible excursion from the ideas that engage its attention. So fhort is the excurfion, that when a metaphor is ufed, the moment the mind hath catched the idea of any refemblance to the thing which it is about to exprefs, it immediately transfers the terms belonging to the foreign object to it, as if they were one and the fame thing. So that, in fact, ufing metaphors is nothing more than giving new namest to things.

The advantage of ufing metaphors is, that we can borrow a name from a thing which contains the quality we mean to exprefs in a greater degree than the fubject to which we afcribe it; and by this means can often fuggeft a stronger idea of a quality than any terms orginally appropriated to our subject could convey. Besides, along with the name, other ideas, as of dignity or meanness, agreeableness or disagreeableness, and the like, will be transferred to the object to which it is applied. So that, by means of the complex ideas which accompany the names of things,

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things, we can give just what size and colour we please to any thing we are defcribing.

Moreover, as metaphors are most naturally taken from senfible things, and particularly from visible objects, in perusing a discourse abounding with well-chofen metaphors, the mind is entertained with a fucceffion of agreeably-varied views and landSchapes. And though these prospects be extremely tranfient, they cannot fail to contribute confiderably to a reader's entertain

ment.

I may add that, though, in fome of these refpects, a comparifon hath the advantage of a metaphor; yet, in one respect, a metaphor gives a more fenfible pleasure than a comparison. This arifes from the harshness and impropriety there, for a moment, appears to be in the ufe of a metaphorical instead of a proper term; which increases the fatisfaction we instantly receive from approving of the new application of the word. That this contraft between the ufual and unusual sense of words is a neceffary ingredient in the pleasure we receive from metaphors, is evident; because, when metaphors have, by frequent use, become evanefcent, they have no more pleasing effect than the proper names of things; and because, in order to become fully fenfible of all the beauty of metaphorical expreffions, we must distinctly attend to the original meaning of fuch terms, at the fame time that we perceive their figurative application in the paffage before us.

I shall exemplify these observations by that ftrong and happy metaphor of Virgil, I have mentioned once before, by which he calls the two Scipios the thunderbolts of war. This image might have been extended to a long fimile; but the fituation of the hero did not admit of fo great an excursion from his principal fubject.

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fubject. The poet, therefore, having firft laid hold of the idea of resemblance as it occurred to his mind, without multiplying the objects of his attention, by exprefsly comparing his heroes to thunderbolts, calls the heroes themselves the thunderbolts. This was evidently only giving a new name to his heroes, but with this great advantage, that the ideas we conceive of the rapidity and deftructive power belonging to thunderbolts are hereby transferred upon them. At the fame time, likewise, the ideas of grandeur accompanying a scene of thunder and lightning, throw a confiderable degree of the fublime into their characters, and the mind of the reader is entertained with a momentary proSpect of fo folemn and grand a scene in nature. Moreover, along with this, the oppofition between the two very different senses of the word (which, however harsh it may appear for a moment, we presently see the propriety of) heightens the pleasureable senfation.

Highly ornamental as metaphors are in discourse, it is to neceffity that we are indebted for the first use of them. It was neither poffible, nor convenient, that every different object should have a diftin&t name. That would have been to multiply words, both to the overburthening of the memory, and the prejudice of science. For it greatly favours the propagation of knowledge to call things that are fimilar to one another by the fame name. Without this there could have been no fuch thing as general principles, or general knowledge. Now it is one and the fame process by which we make general or abstract terms, and by which figurative expreffions are invented. The difference is only in degree, not in kind.

Suppose, for inftance, we had never feen but one horse; unlefs we give the fame name to things that are fimilar, and even

to