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 plagæ. 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 follow

ing 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-eyed 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. viii.

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 Tryphoëo.

Æneid, 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 :

O thou fond many! with what loud applause
Did'st thou beat heav'n 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,
And now thou would'st eat thy dead vomit up,
And howl'st to find it.

Second Part, Henry IV. Act I. Sc. 6.

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 curled 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 resem. blance, in the hurry and glow of composing, has been thought a sufficient foundation for the simile. Such phantom similes 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 :

-Galathea thymo mihi dulcior Hyblæ.

Bucol. vii. 37.

Ego Sardois videar tibi amarior herbis.

Gallo, cujus amor tantum mihi crescit in horas,
Quantum vere novo viridis se subjicit alnus.

Nor Tasso, in his Aminta:

Picciola e' l' ape, e fa col picciol morso
Pur gravi, e pur moleste le ferite;
Ma, qual cosa é più picciola d'amore,
Se in ogni breve spatio entra, e s'asconde
In ogni breve spatio? hor, sotto a l'ombra
De le palpebre, bor trà minuti rivi
D'un biondo crine, hor dentro le pozzette
Che forma un dolce riso in bella guancia;
E pur fa tanto grandi, e si mortali,
E cosi immedicabili le piaghe.

Ibid. 41.

Bucol. x. 37.

Act II. Sc. 1.

Nor Boileau, the chastest of all writers, and that even in his art of poetry :

Ainsi tel autrefois, qu'on vit avec Faret
Charbonner de ses vers les murs d'un cabaret,
S'en va mal à propos d'une voix insolente,
Chanter du peuple Hebreu la fuite triomphante,
Et poursuivant Moise au travers des desérts,
Court avec Pharaon se noyer dans les mers.

Chant. I. 1. 21.

Mais allons voir le Vrai, jusqu'en sa source même.
Un dévot aux yeux creux, et d'abstinence blême,
S'il n'a point le cœur juste, est affreux devant Dieu,
L'Evangile au Chrêtien ne dit, en aucun lieu,
Sois devot: elle dit, Sois doux, simple, equitable:
Car d'un devot souvent au Chrêtien veritable
La distance est deux fois plus longue, à mon avis,
Que du Pôle Antarctique au Détroit de Davis.

Boileau, Satire xi

But for their spirits and souls

This word rebellion had froze them up

As fish are in a pond.

Second Part, Henry IV. Act I. Sc. 3.

Queen. The pretty vaulting sea refus'd to drown me; Knowing, that thou would'st have me drown'd on shore; With tears as salt as sea, through thy unkindness.

Second Part, Henry VI. Act III. Sc. 6.

Here there is no manner of resemblance but in the word drown; for there is no real resemblance between being drown'd at sea, and dying of grief at land. But perhaps this sort of tinsel wit may have a propriety in it, when used to express an affected, not a real passion, which was the Queen's case.

Pope has several similes of the same stamp. I shall transcribe one or two from the Essay on Man, the gravest and most instructive of all his perform

ances:

And hence one master passion in the breast,
Like Aaron's serpent swallows up the rest.

Epist. ii. l. 131.

And again, talking of this same ruling or master passion :

Nature its mother, Habit is its nurse;
Wit, spirit, faculties, but make it worse;
Reason itself but gives it edge and power;
As heav'n's bless'd beam turns vinegar more sour.

Ibid. l. 145.

Lord Bolingbroke, speaking of historians :

Where their sincerity as to fact is doubtful, we strike out truth by the confrontation of different accounts; as we strike out sparks of fire by the collision of flints and steel.

Let us vary the phrase a very little, and there will not remain a shadow of resemblance. Thus,

We discover truth by the confrontation of different accounts; as we strike out sparks of fire by the collision of flints and steel.

Racine makes Pyrrhus say to Andromaque,