Example 2. Lord Bolingbroke supposes a similitude between the discovery of truth, from comparing the accounts of different historians, and the production of fire by the collision of flint and steel: "Where their sincerity as to fact is doubtful, we strike out truth by a confrontation of different accounts, as we strike out sparks of fire by the collision of flint and steel."

Analysis. To illustrate the futility of such comparisons, let us change the expression of the last example, and the shadow of resemblance will vanish: "Where historians differ in their accounts of the same transaction, whether prompted by insincerity, or any other reprehensible disposition, we discover the truth by comparing them and making them correct one another, and we generate fire by the collision of flint and steel." As the act of comparing different authors can scarcely be called collision, so different authors have no analogy with flint and steel. The word strike, used figuratively in the first member of the sentence, and literally in the second member, seems to have prompted the author to employ this imaginary comparison.

284. Extended similes may be introduced with advantage on various occasions. They are consistent with abstract disquisition, and with perfect coolness and composure of mind. Such gentle appeals to the imagination, even in philosophical composition, always relieve and amuse the reader, and often add illustration to pleasure.

285. There remains another species of composition, in which long and circumstantial comparisons frequently appear; it is that placid and feeble composition which can scarcely be said to instruct, for it contains little research or argument, but which has for its capital aim, to amuse the imagination by a number of pretty or familiar resemblances.

Obs. Though similes are often the work of the boldest and most fervid fancy, yet none of the ornaments of language are perhaps more allied to deficiency of genius and taste, both in the writer and the reader.

286. Long comparisons can scarcely be admitted with propriety into other productions than those we have enumerated. History, in the hands of all writers of genius, has rejected them with disdain, though it admits short similitudes restricted to the mere province of illustration.

"There may re

Example. Hume thus characterizes Shakspeare: main a suspicion that we overrate the greatness of his genius, in the same manner as bodies appear more gigantic, by their being disproportioned or mis-shapen."

Obs. If any one chooses to learn from experience the repugnance between the spirit of history and circumstantial comparisons, he may have recourse to Strada, author of the History of the Belgic War. He will there find, that the too frequent use of this ornament diminishes the dignity and the credibility of the performance, and communicates to a relation of truth much of the levity and frivolity of a romance.

287. Oratory, for a similar reason, repudiates lengthened similes, though it admits short ones, and abounds with other figures; particularly interrogation, metaphor, and personification.

Illus. In the more animated orations of Cicero, there is scarcely to be found a single comparison of any extent. Demosthenes, still more ardent, more rarely indulges in the use of them. The minds of these illustrious orators were too deeply engaged with their matter, to be attentive to beauties calculated only to please. They aimed at the instruction and conviction of their hearers, not to captivate their imaginations. They would have been ashamed to appear to have spent their time in ransacking nature for resemblances, however pertinent and brilliant, if not absolutely necessary. The ardour and penetration of their minds would not have been, perhaps, very favourable to their success, had they condescended to hunt for such puerile and declamatory ornaments.

288. But of all improper occasions on which circumstantial similes can make their appearance, the most improper are the tender scenes of tragedy; and yet such inconsisten'ces present themselves in some dramatic productions of no small reputation.

Illus. Addison was endued with much sensibility in respect of sublime sentiments and the peculiarities of manners; but he seems to have been incapable of conceiving any high degree of passion. His characters, accordingly, in the tragedy of Cato, display many of those splendid and dignified conceptions which he had imbibed in perusing the orators and poets of ancient Rome, but all savour of the Stoicism of Cato: and when they attempt to utter the language of passion, they deviate into declamation, or adopt the frigid expression of tame spectators. The scene between Lucia and Portius, in the third act, will afford ample proof of the justness of these remarks.

Example 1. When Portius, from preceding behaviour and acknowledgment on the part of Lucia, had every reason to believe he was favoured with her love, and was anticipating the satisfaction of such a connection, in the most unexpected change of disposition; she informs him that she had made a vow never to marry him. Never was a man thrown more suddenly from the pinnacle of felicity, into the abyss of despair. How does he express himself in such a critical situation? He introduces a comparison in the language of a spectator, descriptive of the attitude in which his agitation had placed him, without uttering a single sentiment of passion:

"Fixt in astonishment, I gaze upon thee,

Like one just blasted by a stroke from heaven,
Who pants for breath, and stiffens, yet alive
In dreadful looks,-a monument of woe."

Example 2. Lucia replies in the same language of description:

Analysis. One would imagine that the author of the Rehearsal had in view such unnatural composition. But we cannot help being surprised that Addison did not profit by his remarks. "Now here she must make a simile," says Mr. Bays. "Where's the necessity of that?" replies Mr. Smith. "Because she's surprised; that's a general rule; you must ever make a simile when you are surprised; 'tis the new way of writing."

289. But although such deliberate and highly-finished comparisons are inconsistent with every violent exertion of passion, yet short similes, adapted entirely to the purpose of illustration, may appear in the most passionate scenes.

Illus. There is scarcely a tragedy in any language, in which_passion assumes so high a tone, and is so well supported, as in the Moor of Venice; and yet, in one of the most passionate scenes of that passionate tragedy, no reader can hesitate about the propriety of introducing two similes, besides several bold metaphors.

Example. Othello thus deliberates, in the deepest agitation, about the murder of his wife, on account of her supposed infidelity:

It is the cause, my soul,

Let me not name it to you, ye chaste stars!
It is the cause--yet I'll not shed her blood,
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster;
Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men.
Put out the light, and then put out thy light.
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
I can again thy flaming light restore,
Should I repent; but once put out thy light,
Thou cunningest pattern of excelling nature,
I know not where is the Promethean heat
That can thy light relumine.

When I have pluck'd thy rose,

I cannot give it vital growth again;
It needs must wither."

Analysis. The comparisons of the skin of Desdemona to snow in point of whiteness, and to alabaster in point of smoothness, are admirably adapted to improve our ideas of her beauty, and consequently to heighten the tide of the Moor's distress, in being obliged to put to death, from principles of honour, a woman he had so much reason to admire. The meditation on the resemblance between her life and the light of a taper is striking and melancholy: and the comparison between her death and the plucking of a rose is perfectly concordant with the same sentiments.

Corol. Short similes, which aid the impression by rendering our conceptions more vivid and significant, are therefore consistent with the highest swell of passion.

CHAPTER IV.

PERSONIFICATION.

290. PERSONIFICATION, or Prosopopeia, is a figure which consists in ascribing life and action to inanimate objects. It has its origin in the influence that imagination and passion have upon our perceptions and opinions.

Illus. If our perceptions and opinions were dictated and regulated entirely by the understanding, nothing could appear more whimsical and absurd than to confound so far one of the capital distinctions in nature, as to interchange the properties of animated and inanimated substances, and to ascribe sentiment and action, not only to vegetables, but to earth, fire, water, and every other existence most remote from activity and sensibility. Strange, however, as this practice may appear to reason, such is the ascendency of imagination and passion, that nothing is more frequent and meritorious with several sorts of writers, particularly orators and poets.

Example 1. Anthony, in Shakspeare, thus addresses the dead body of Cæsar:

"O pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth!"

2. "The sword of Gaul," says Ossian, " trembles at his side, and longs to glitter in his hand."

3. "Ye woods and wilds! whose melancholy gloom
Accords with my soul's sadness, and draws forth

The voice of sorrow from my bursting heart." Lady Randolph.

291. Not only the inanimate parts of nature are personified, but the qualities and members of the body; even abstract ideas have sometimes conferred upon them the same important prerogative.

Illus. Thus, hope and fear, love and hatred, the head, the hands, the feet, prosperity and adversity, are often addressed as independent living agents.

Scholium. Human nature is a very compounded constitution, of which the several parts strongly influence one another. All mankind have remarked the singular power which affection and passion assume over our actions and our opinions. When we wish to believe any relation, or to perform any action, we seldom want reasons to persuade us that our opinions are well founded, and that our conduct is right. Affection, or interest, guide our notions and behaviour in the affairs of life; imgaination and passion affect the sentiments that we entertain in matters of taste.

292. These faculties suggest a division of personification' into two kinds; the first called descriptive, which is addressed chiefly to the imagination: the second, passionate, the object of which is to afford gratification to the passions.

Illus. 1. The conception that we entertain of the former of these kinds, amounts not to conviction that life and intelligence are really communicated to the personified object; but the conception we form of the latter seems to amount to conviction, at least for a short time.

2. When Thomson personifies the seasons, when Milton calls Shakspeare fancy's child, when the ocean is said to smile, and the torrent to roar, the most delicate imagination is not so far misled as to conclude that there is any thing real in these suppositions. They are figures conjured up entirely to gratify the imagination; and for that reason, examples of this sort are denominated descriptive personifications; because they are concordant with the tone of vivacity suggested by description. (Illus. Art. 35.)

3. But, in two of the instances already quoted, where the persons who personify are agitated by real passion, when Antony addresses. the dead body of Cæsar; and Lady Randolph converses with the woods and wilds; the mind is affected in a much more sensible manner, and conceives for a moment that the deception is complete. As soon as passion subsides, and reflection recovers ascendency, the delusion disappears, and the fiction is detected. But as this momentary gratification is highly agreeable, and even the reflection upon it is attended with pleasure, it is proper it should be distinguished from the former species of personification; and for this reason it has been called passionate.

293. As descriptive personification is derived from the disposition of the imagination to indulge in such views of nature and art, as tend most to gratify itself; so life and motion are capital sources of pleasure, in the contemplation of the objects with which we are surrounded.

Illus. 1. We feel a superior satisfaction in surveying the life of animals, than that of vegetables; and we receive more gratification in contemplating the life of vegetables, than those parts of nature which are commonly deemed inanimate. We receive even higher pleasure in beholding those animals of the same species, which are endowed with greater degrees of life and motion.

2. In a word, in all views of nature at rest, as in landscapes; and in all views of nature, in motion; the more numerous the objects are, either possessed of life, though not in motion, or possessed of life, and actually in motion, the greater, in proportion, is the power of the view to charm the imagination, and to captivate the spectator. It is this tendency of the imagination, to delight itself, not only with the contemplation of life, but of the best species of life, that of intelligence, which induces it to extend this property as widely as possible, because, by doing so, it extends the sphere of its own enjoyment. It is not content, accordingly, with the contemplation of all the real life and action which fall under its observation; it makes vigorous exertions to communicate these valuable qualities to many other objects to which Providence has denied them; to vegetables, to ideas, and even to matter totally inert.

294. The influence of this figure is so general and powerful as to constitute the very essence of compositions addressed to the imagination.