And so (I say) I'll cut the causes off,

Flatt'ring my mind with things impossible,

Third Part, Henry VI. Act III- Sc. 9.

-Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more.

O thou Goddess,

Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 5.

Thou divine Nature! how thyself thou blazon'st
In these two princely boys! they are as gentle
As zephyrs blowing below the violet,

Not wagging his sweet head; and yet as rough,
(Their royal blood inchaf'd) as the rudest wind,
That by the top doth take the mountain pine,
And make him stoop to the vale.

Cymbeline, Act IV. Sc. 4.

Why did not I pass away in secret, like the flower of the rock that lifts its fair head unseen, and strows its withered leaves on the blast? Fingal.

There is a joy in grief when peace dwells with the sorrowful. But they are wasted with mourning Q daughter of Toscar, and their days are few. They fall away like the flower on which the sun looks in his strength, after the mildew has passed over it, and its head is heavy with the drops of night. Fingal.

The sight obtained of the city of Jerusalem by the Christian army, compared to that of land discovered after a long voyage, Tasso's Gierusalem, canto iii. st. 4. The fury of Rinaldo subsiding when not opposed, to that of wind or water when it has a free passage, canto xx. st. 58.

As words convey but a faint and obscure notion of great numbers, a poet, to give a lively notion of the object he describes with regard to number, does well to compare it to what is familiar and commonly known. Thus Homer* compares the Grecian

*Book ii. 1. 111.

army in point of number to a swarm of bees: in another passage he compares* it to that profusion of leaves and flowers which appear in the spring, or of insects in a summer's evening: and Milton,

-As when the potent rod

Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day,
Wav'd round the coast, up call'd a pitchy cloud
Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,
That o'er the realm of impious Pharao hung
Like night, and darken'd all the land of Nile:
So numberless were those bad angels seen,
Hovering on wing under the cope of hell,
'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires.

Paradise Lost, B. 1.

Such comparisons have, by some writers,† been condemned for the lowness of the images introduced: but surely without reason; for, with regard to numbers, they put the principal subject in a strong light.

The foregoing comparisons operate by resemblance: others have the same effect by contrast.

York. I am the last of noble Edward's sons,

Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales was first;
In war, was never lion rag'd more fierce;
In peace, was never gentle lamb more mild;
Than was that young and princely gentleman.
His face thou hast, for even so look'd he,
Accomplished with the number of thy hours.
But when he frown'd it was against the French,
And not against his friends. His noble hand
Did win what he did spend ; and spent not that
Which his triumphant father's hand had won.
His hands were guilty of no kindred's blood,
But bloody with the enemies of his kin.
Oh, Richard! York is too far gone with grief,
Or else he never would compare between.
Richard II. Act II. Sc. 3.

Book ii. 1. 551.

+ See Vida Poetic. lib. ii. 282.

Milton has a peculiar talent in embellishing the principal subject by associating it with others that are agreeable; which is the third end of a comparison. Similes of this kind have, beside, a separate effect: they diversify the narration by new images that are not strictly necessary to the comparison: they are short episodes, which, without drawing us from the principal subject, afford great delight by their beauty and variety:

He scarce had ceas'd, when the superior fiend
Was moving toward the shore; his pond'rous shield,
Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,
Behind him cast; the broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
At ev'ning from the top of Fesolé,

Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.

-Thus far these, beyond

Compare of mortal prowess, yet observ'd
Their dread commander. He, above the rest
In shape and gesture proudly eminent,
Stood like a tow'r; his forin had yet not lost
All her original brightness, nor appear'd
Less than archangel ruin'd and th' excess
Of glory obscur'd: as when the sun new-risen
Looks through the horizontal misty air

Shorn of his beams; or from behind the moon

In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds

On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs.

As when a vulture on Imaus bred,

Whose snowy ridge the roving Tartar bounds,
Dislodging from a region scarce of prey

To gorge the flesh of lambs, or yeanling kids,

Milton, b. i.

Milton, b. i.

On hills where flocks are fed, fly towards the springs
Of Ganges or Hydaspes, Indian streams,

But in his way lights on the barren plains
Of Sericana, where Chineses drive

With sails and wind their cany wagons light:
So on this windy sea of land, the fiend
Walk'd up and down alone, bent on his prey.

Milton, b. i

-Yet higher than their tops
The verdurous wall of Paradise up sprung:
Which to our general sire gave prospect large
Into this nether empire neighbouring round.
And higher than that wall, a circling row
Of goodliest trees loaden with fairest fruit,
Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue,
Appear'd, with gay enamel'd colours mix'd
On which the sun more glad impress'd his beams
Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow,

When God had show'r'd the earth; so lovely seem'd
That landscape: and of pure now purer air
Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires
Vernal delight and joy, able to drive

All sadness but despair; now gentle gales
Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense
Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils. As when to them who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow
Sabean odour from the spicy shore

Of Araby the blest; with such delay

Well pleas'd they slack their course, and many a league
Cheer'd with the grateful smell, old Ocean smiles.

Milton, b. iv.

With regard to similes of this kind, it will readily occur to the reader, that when a resembling subject is once properly introduced in a simile, the mind is transitorily amused with the new object, and is not dissatisfied with the slight interruption. Thus, in fine weather, the momentary excursions of a traveller for agreeable prospects or elegant buildings, cheer his mind, relieve him from the languor of uniformity, and without much lengthening his journey, in reality, shorten it greatly in appear

ance.

Next of comparisons that aggrandise or elevate. These affect us more than any other sort: the reason of which may be gathered from the chapter of Grandeur and Sublimity; and, without reasoning, will be evident from the following instances: 19a

VOL. II.

As when a flame the winding valley fils.
And runs on crackling shrubs between the hills,
Then o'er the stubble, up the mountain flies,
Fires the high woods, and blazes to the skies,
This way and that, the spreading torrent roars;
So sweeps the hero through the wasted shores.
Around him wide, immense destruction pours,
And earth is delug'd with the sanguine show'rs.

Iliad, xx. 569.

Through blood, through death, Achilles still proceeds,
O'er slaughtered heroes, and o'er rolling steeds.
As when avenging flames with fury driv'n
On guilty towns exert the wrath of Heav'n,
The pale inhabitants, some fall, some fly,
And the red vapours purple all the sky :
So rag'd Achilles; Death and dire dismay,
And toils, and terrors, fill'd the dreadful day.

Iliad, xxi. 605.

Methinks, King Richard and myself should meet
With no less terror than the elements

Of fire and water, when their thund'ring shock,
At meeting, tears the clowdy cheeks of heav'n.

Richard II. Act III. Sc. 5.

As rusheth a foamý stream from the dark shady steep of Cromla, when thunder is rolling above, and dark brown night rests on the hill: so fierce, so vast, so terrible, rush forward the sons of Erin. The chief, like a whale of Ocean followed by all its billows, pours valour forth as a stream, rolling its might along

the shore.

Fingal, b. i.

As foll a thousand waves to a rock, so Swaran's host came on; as meets a rock a thousand waves, so Inisfail met Swaran.

Ibid.

I beg peculiar attention to the following simile for a reason that shall be mentioned:

Thus breathing death, in terrible array,
The close compacted legions urg'd their way ;
Fierce they drove on, impatient to destroy ;
Troy charg'd the first, and Hector first of Troy.
As from some mountain's craggy forehead torn,
A rock's round fragment flies with fury borne,