osity. Hector he compares to a rock tumbling from the top of a mountain,* because while he moved he was irresistible, and when he stopped immovable; qualities not more conspicuous in the hero, than in the stone. Milton likens Satan to a whale;† not because the one spouts salt water, as the other is vulgarly supposed to breathe out sulphureous fire, but because of his enormous size: and, to lessen the incongruity, if any should be supposed to remain, the poet is at great pains to raise our idea of the whale's magnitude: Him haply slumbering on the Norway foam But, secondly, it may happen, even in the higher poetry, that the compared qualities shall present an incongruous association, to the disadvantage of the principal idea. In this case, as there is an opposition, of greatness in the principal idea, and meanness in the object alluded to, it will be somewhat difficult to maintain true epick dignity. It may, however, be done, by blending with the description of the mean object some interesting circumstance, to take off the attention * Iliad. xiii. † Par. Lost, book 1. from the incongruity, and fix it on something important or serious. Ulysses, going to sleep, covered over with leaves, after swimming out naked from a shipwreck, is compared by Homer to a bit of live coal preserved by a peasant in a heap of embers: As some poor peasant, fated to reside Remote from neighbours, in a forest wide, Till Pallas pour'd soft slumber on his eyes.* This simile, when we attend to the point of likeness, will be found to have sufficient propriety; the resemblance being obvious, between a man almost deprived of life, and a brand almost extinguished; between the foliage that defends Ulysses from cold, and probably from death, during the night, and the embers that keep alive the seeds of fire: yet if dressed up by a genius like Butler, it might assume a ludicrous appearance, from the disproportionate nature of the things compared. But Homer, with great delicacy, draws off the reader's attention to the peasant's solitary dwelling on the extremity of a frontier, where he had no neighbours to assist him in renewing his fire, * Odyss. lib. 5. if by any accident it should go out. The poet is less delicate on another occasion, when he likens thè same hero, tossing in his bed, and sleepless through desire to be avenged on the plunderers of his household, to a man employed " in broiling on a great fire a stomach full of fat and blood, "and often turning it, because he is impatient "to have it roasted."* This image is unpleasing and despicable; and the comparison must appear ridiculous to a modern reader: though Bolieau pleads, that the viand here mentioned was esteemed a great delicacy by the ancients; though Eustathius seems to think, that a low similitude might in this place very well suit the beggarly condition of Ulysses; and though, in the opinion of Mons. Dacier, the bag stuffed with fat and blood might, in Homer's days, convey a religious, and consequently an important, idea. When the object alluded to is pleasing in itself, and the description elegant, we are apt to overlook the incongruity of a similitude, even where the disproportion is very great; the ludicrous emotion being as it were suppressed by our admiration of the poetry, or the littleness of the object compensated by its beauty. That famous passage in Virgil, where Amata, roaming up and down, from the agitation of her mind, and the impulse of a demon, is compared to a top whipped about by boys, has been called fustian by some criticks, and burlesque by others. In my * Demetrius Phalereus observes, that "Elegance of "language, by exciting admiration, makes the ridicu"lous disappear;" and adds, "that to express a ludicrous "sentiment in fine language is like dressing an ape in "fine clothes. The words of Sappho, (continues he), "when beauty is her theme, are sweet and beautiful; in her poems on Love, on Air, and on the Halcyon. "Indeed all the beauties of language, and some of them "of her own invention, are interwoven with Sappho's 66 as poetry. But the Rustick Bridegroom, and the Porter "at the Wedding, she has ridiculed in a different style; "using very mean expressions, and a choice of words "less suitable to poetry than to prose." Demet. Phal. § 166, 167, 168 An ape dressed in fine clothes does not cease to be ludicrous: and in the mock heroick poem, where the subject is contemptible or mean, great elegance, or even magnificence, of diction, may heighten the ridicule; of which, the Lutrin, the Dunciad, the Rape of the Lock, and the Battle of the Frogs and Mice, abound in examples. But it is probable, that Demetrius is here speaking of burlesque, and that Sappho's poem on the wedding was of that character; something perhaps resembling the ballad, said to be written by James I. king of Scotland, and commonly known by the name of Christ's Kirk on the Green. And it is true, that in burlesque writing, as distinguished from the mock heroick, vulgarity of expression is almost indispensable. See above, chap. 2. sect. iv. 9. 10. 11. opinion it is neither. The propriety in point of likeness is undeniable. The object alluded to, though in itself void of dignity, is however pleasing; and receives elevation from the poetry, which is finished in Virgil's best manner, and is indeed highly picturesque and very beautiful.* What has been said on the subject of similitudes, when applied to the present purpose, amounts to this: "Incongruity does not appear "ludicrous, when it is so qualified, or circum❝stanced, as to raise in the mind some emotion "more powerful than that of laughter." V. If then, it be asked, what is that quality in things, which makes them provoke that pleasing emotion or sentiment whereof laughter is the external sign? I answer, it is an uncommon mixture of relation and contrariety, exhibited, or supposed to be united, in the same assemblage. If again it be asked, whether such a mixture will always provoke laughter? my answer is, it will always, or for the most part, excite the risible emotion, unless' * Ceu quondam torto volitans sub verbere turbo, Eneid, vii. 378. |