Such un

cribe to that column the actions and properties of a man. natural mixtures render the image indistinct: leaving it to waver, in our conception, between the figurative and the literal sense. Horace's rule, which he applies to characters, should be observed by all writers who deal in figures:

-Servetur ad imum,

Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet.

Mr. Pope, elsewhere, addressing himself to the king, says,
To thee the world its present homage pays,

The harvest early, but mature the praise.

This, though not so gross, is a fault, however, of the same kind. It is plain that, had not the rhyme misled him to the choice of an improper phrase, he would have said,

The harvest early, but mature the crop ;

And so would have continued the figure which he had begun. Whereas, by dropping it unfinished, and by employing the literal word praise, when we were expecting something that related to the harvest, the figure is broken, and the two members of the sentence have no proper correspondence with each other:

The harvest early, but mature the praise.

The works of Ossian abound with beautiful and correct metaphors; such as that on a hero: 'In peace, thou art the gale or spring; in war, the mountain storm.' Or this, on a woman: 'She was covered with the light of beauty; but her heart was the house of pride.' They afford, however, one instance of the fault we are now censuring: Trothal went forth with the stream of his people, but they met a rock: for Fingal stood unmoved; broken, they rolled back from his side. Nor did they roll in safety; the spear of the king pursued their flight.' At the beginning, the metaphor is very beautiful. The stream, the unmoved rock, the waves rolling back broken, are expressions employed in the proper and consistent language of figure; but, in the end, when we are told, 'they did not roll in safety, because the spear of the king pursued their flight,' the literal meaning is improperly mixed with the metaphor: they are, at cne and the same time, presented to us as waves that roll, and men that may be pursued and wounded with a spear. If it be faulty to jumble together, in this manner, metaphorical and plain language, it is still more so,

In the fifth place, to make two different metaphors meet on one object. This is what is called mixed metaphor, and is indeed one of the grossest abuses of this figure; such as Shakspeare's expression, to take arms against a sea of troubles.' This makes a most unnatural medley, and confounds the imagination entirely. Quintilian has sufficiently guarded us against it. Id imprimis est custodiendum, ut quo genere cœperis translationis, hoc finias. Multi autem cùm initium a tempestate sumserunt, incendio aut ruina finiunt; quæ est inconsequentia rerum fœdissima.'* Observe, for in

* "We must be particularly attentive to end with the same kind of metaphor with which we have begun. Some, when they begin the figure with a tempest, conclude it with a conflagration; which forms a shameful inconsistency.

stance, what an inconsistent group of objects is brought together by Shakspeare, in the following passage of the Tempest; speaking of persons recovering their judgment,after the enchantment which held them was dissolved:

-The charm dissolves apace,

And as the morning steals upon the night,
Melting the darkness, so their rising senses
Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle
Their clearer reason.

So many ill sorted things are here joined, that the mind can see nothing clearly; the morning stealing upon the darkness, and at the same time melting it; the senses of men chasing fumes, ignorant fumes, and fumes that mantle. So again in Romeo and Juliet:

As glorious,

As is the winged messenger from heaven,
Unto the white upturned wondering eyes
Of mortals, that fall back to gaze on him,
When he bestrides the lazy pacing clouds,
And sails upon the bosom of the air.

Here the angel is represented, as at one moment, bestriding the clouds, and sailing upon the air; and upon the bosom of the air too; which forms such a confused picture, that it is impossible for any imagination to comprehend it.

More correct writers than Shakspeare, sometimes fall into this error of mixing metaphors. It is surprising how the following inaccuracy should have escaped Mr. Addison, in his Letter from Italy;

I bridle in my struggling muse with pain,
That longs to launch into a bolder strain.*

The muse, figured as a horse, may be bridled; but when we speak of launching, we make it a ship; and by no force of imagination, can it be supposed both a horse and a ship at one moment; bridled to hinder it from launching. The same author, in one of his numbers in the Spectator, says, "There is not a single view of human nature, which is not sufficient to extinguish the seeds of pride.' Observe the incoherence of the things here joined together, making 'a view extinguish, and extinguish seeds.'

Horace, also, is incorrect, in the following passage:

Urit enim fulgore suo qui prægravat artes

Infra se positas.

Urit qui prægravat. He dazzles who bears down with his weight; makes plainly an inconsistent mixture of metaphorical ideas. Neither can this other passage be altogether vindicated:

Ah! quantâ laboras in Charybdi,
Digne puer meliore flammâ?

Where a whirlpool of water, Charybdis, is said to be a flame not good enough for this young man; meaning, that he was unfortunate in the object of his passion. Flame is, indeed, become al

* In my observation on this passage, I find that I had coincided with Dr. Johnson, who passes a similar censure upon it, in his life of Addison.

most a literal word for the passion of love: but as it still retains, in some degree, its figurative power, it should never have been used as synonymous with water, and mixed with it in the same metaphor. When Mr. Pope (Eloisa to Abelard) says,

All then is full, possessing and possest,

No craving void left aking in the breast.

A void may, metaphorically, be said to crave: but can a void be said to ake?

A good rule has been given for examining the propriety of metaphors, when we doubt whether or not they be of the mixed kind; namely, that we should try to form a picture upon them, and consider how the parts would agree, and what sort of figure the whole would present, when delineated with a pencil. By this means, we should become sensible, whether inconsistent circumstances were mixed, and a monstrous image thereby produced, as in all those faulty instances I have now been giving; or whether the object was, all along, presented in one natural and consistent point of view.

As metaphors ought never to be mixed, so, in the sixth place, we should avoid crowding them together on the same object. Supposing each of the metaphors to be preserved distinct, yet, if they be heaped on one another, they produce a confusion somewhat of the same kind with the mixed metaphor. We may judge of this by the following passage from Horace:

Motum ex Metello consule civicum,
Bellique causas, et vitia et modos,
Ludumque fortunæ, gravesque
Principum amicitias, et arma

Nondum expiatis uncta cruoribus ;
Periculosæ plenum opus aleæ

Tractas, et incedis per ignes
Suppositos cineri doloso.*

Lib. ii. 1.

This passage, though very poetical, is, however, harsh and obscure; owing to no other cause but this, that three distinct metaphors are crowded together, to describe the difficulty of Pollio's writing a history of the civil wars. First, 'Tractas arma uncta cruoribus nondum expiatis;' next, opus plenum periculosa aleæ ;' and then; Incedis per ignes suppositos doloso cineri.' The mind has difficulty in passing readily through so many different views, given it in quick succession, of the same object.

The only other rule concerning metaphors which I shall add, in

* Of warm commotions, wrathful jars,
The growing seeds of civil wars;
Of double fortune's cruel games,
The spacious means, the private aims,
And fatal friendships, of the guilty great,
Alas! how fatal to the Roman state!
Of mighty legions late subdu'd,

And arms with Latian blood embru'd ;
Yet unaton'd (a labour vast!
Doubtful the die, and dire the cast!)

You treat adventurous, and incautious tread
On fires with faithless embers overspread.

FRANOIS

the seventh place, is, that they be not too far pursued. If the resemblance, on which the figure is founded, be long dwelt upon, and carried into all its minute circumstances, we make an allegory instead of a metaphor; we tire the reader, who soon becomes weary of this play of fancy; and we render our discourse obscure. This is called straining a metaphor. Cowley deals in this to excess; and to this error is owing, in a great measure, that intricacy and harshness, in his figurative language, which I before remarked. Lord Shaftesbury is sometimes guilty of pursuing his metaphors too far. Fond, to a high degree, of every decoration of style, when once he had hit upon a figure that pleased him, he was extremely loth to part with it. Thus, in his advice to an author, having taken up soliloquy or meditation, under the metaphor of a proper method of evacuation for an author, he pursues this metaphor through several pages, under all the forms of discharging crudities, throwing off froth and scum, bodily operation, taking physic, curing indigestion, giving vent to choler, bile, flatulencies, and tumours; till, at last, the idea becomes nauseous. Dr. Young, also, often trespasses in the same way. The merit, however, of this writer, in figurative language, is great, and deserves to be remarked. No writer, ancient or modern, had a stronger imagination than Dr. Young, or one more fertile in figures of every kind. His metaphors are often new, and often natural and beautiful. But his imagination was strong and rich, rather than delicate and correct. Hence, in his Night Thoughts, there prevails an obscurity, and a hardness in his style. The metaphors are frequently too bold, and frequently too far pursued; the reader is dazzled, rather than enlightened; and kept constantly on the stretch to keep pace with the author. We may observe, for instance, how the following metaphor is spun out:

Thy thoughts are vagabond; all outward bound,
Midst sands, and rocks, and storms, to cruise for pleasure;
If gain'd, dear bought; and better miss'd than gain'd.

Fancy and sense, from an infected shore,

Thy cargo brings; and pestilence the prize;

Then such the thirst, insatiable thirst,

By fond indulgence but inflam'd the more,
Fancy still cruises, when poor sense is tir'd.

Speaking of old age, he says, it should

Walk thoughtful on the silent, solemn shore
Of that vast ocean, it must sail so soon;
And put good works on board and wait the wind
That shortly blows us into worlds unknown.

The two first lines are uncommonly beautiful; 'walk thoughtful on the silent,' &c. but when he continues the metaphor, 'to putting good works on board, and waiting the wind,' it plainly becomes strained, and sinks in dignity. Of all the English authors, I know none so happy in his metaphors as Mr. Addison. His imagination was neither so rich nor so strong as Dr. Young's; but far more chaste and delicate. Perspicuity, natural grace and ease, always distinguish his figures. They are neither harsh nor strained: they never appear

to have been studied or sought after: but seem to rise of their own accord from the subject, and constantly embellish it.

I have now treated fully of the metaphor, and the rules that should govern it, a part of style so important, that it required particular illustration. I have only to add a few words concerning allegory.

An allegory may be regarded as a continued metaphor; as it is the representation of some one thing by another that resembles it, and that is made to stand for it. Thus, in Prior's Henry and Emma, Emma, in the following allegorical manner, describes her constancy to Henry:

Did I but purpose to embark with thee

On the smooth surface of a summer's sea,
While gentle zephyrs play with prosperous gales,
And fortune's favour fills the swelling sails;
But would forsake the ship, and make the shore,
When the winds whistle, and the tempests roar?

We may take also from the scriptures a very fine example of an allegory, in the 80th Psalm; where the people of Israel are represented under the image of a vine, and the figure is supported throughout with great correctness and beauty; Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt, thou hast cast out the heathen and planted it. Thou preparedst room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land. The hills were covered with the shadow of it; and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars. She sent out her boughs into the sea, and her branches into the river. Why hast thou broken down her hedges, so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her! The boar out of the wood doth waste it; and the wild beast of the field doth devour it. Return, we beseech thee, O God of Hosts, look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine!' Here there is no circumstance, (except, perhaps, one phrase at the beginning, thou hast cast out the heathen') that does not strictly agree to a vine, whilst, at the same time, the whole quadrates happily with the Jewish state represented by this figure. This is the first and principal requisite in the conduct of an allegory, that the figurative and the literal meaning be not mixed inconsistently together. For instance, instead of describing the vine, as wasted by the boar from the wood, and devoured by the wild beast of the field, had the Psalmist said, it was afflicted by heathens, or overcome by enemies, (which is the real meaning) this would have ruined the allegory, and produced the same confusion, of which I gave examples in metaphors, when the figurative and literal sense are mixed and jumbled together. Indeed, the same rules that were given for metaphors, may also be applied to allegories, on account of the affinity they bear to each other. The only material difference between them, besides the one being short and the other being prolonged, is, that a metaphor always explains itself by the words that are connected with it in their proper and natural meaning; as when I say 'Achilles was a lion;' an 'able minister is the pillar of the state.' My lion and my pillar are sufficiently interpreted by the mention of Achilles and the minister, which I join to them; but an allegory is, or may be, allowed to stand more disconnected with the literal mean