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really good company) "Every feature, charming creature," he went on, "It is a most unreasonable thing that people cannot go peaceably to see their friends, but these murderers are let loose. Such a shape! such an air! what a glance was that as her chariot passed by mine"My lady herself interrupted him; "Pray who is this fine thing?"-" I warrant," says another, " 'tis the creature I was telling your ladyship of just now."-" You were telling of!" says Jack; "I wish I had been so happy as to have come in and heard you, for I have not words to say what she is; but if an agreeable height, a modest air, a virgin shame, an impatience of being beheld, amidst a blaze of ten thousand charms"-The whole room flew out, "Oh, Mr. Triplett!" When Miss Lofty, a known prude, said she believed she knew whom the gentleman meant; but she was indeed, as he civilly represented her, impatient of being beheld. Then turning to the lady next to her, "The most unbred creature you ever saw." Another pursued the discourse: "As unbred, madam, as you may think her, she is extremely belied if she is the novice she appears; she was last week at a ball till two in the morning; Mr. Triplett knows whether he was the happy man that took care of her home; but"-This was followed by some particular exception that each woman in the room made to some peculiar grace or advantage; so that Mr. Triplett was beaten from one limb and feature to another, till he was forced to resign the whole woman. In the end, I took notice Triplett recorded all this malice in his heart; and saw in his countenance, and a certain waggish shrug, that he designed to repeat the conversation; I therefore let the discourse die, and soon after took an occasion to commend a certain gentleman of my acquaintance for a person of singular modesty, courage, integrity, and withal as a mau of an entertaining conversation, to which advantages he had a shape and manner peculiarly graceful. Mr. Triplett, who is a woman's man,

seemed to hear me with patience enough commend the qualities of his mind: he never heard indeed but that he was a very honest man, and no fool; but for a fine gentleman, he must ask pardon. Upon no other foundation than this, Mr. Triplett took occasion to give the gentleman's pedigree, by what methods some part of the estate was acquired, how much it was beholden to a marriage for the present circumstances of it: after all, he could see nothing but a common man in his person, his breeding, or understanding.

Thus this impertinent humour of diminishing every one who is produced in conversation to their advantage, runs through the world; and I am, I confess, so fearful of the force of ill tongues, that I have begged of all those who are my well-wishers never to commend me, for it will but bring my frailties into examination, and I had rather be unobserved, than conspicuous for disputed perfections. I am confident a thousand young people, who would have been ornaments to society, have, from fear of scandal, never dared to exert themselves in the polite arts of life. Their lives have passed away in an odious rusticity, in spite of great advantages of person, genius, and fortune. There is a vicions terror of being blamed in some well inclined people, and a wicked pleasure in suppressing them in others; both which are to be ani. madverted upon.

T.

METAPHORS.

Non ut placidis coeant immitia, non ut
Serpentes avibus geminentur, tigribus agni.

Nature, and the common laws of sense,
Forbids to reconcile antipathies;

Or make a snake engender with a dove,
And hungry tigers court the tender lambs.

ROSCOMMON.

IF ordinary authors would condescend to write as

they think, they would at least be allowed the praise of being intelligible, but they really take pains to be ridiculous; and by the studied ornaments of style, perfectly disguise the little sense they aim at. There is a grievance of that sort in the commonwealth of let. ters, which I have for some time resolved to redress, and accordingly I have set this day apart for justice. What I mean is the mixture of inconsistent metaphors, which is a fault but too often found in learned writers, but in all the unlearned without exception.

In order to set this matter in a clear light to every reader, I shall in the first place observe, that a metaphor is a simile in one word, which serves to convey the thoughts of the mind under resemblances and images which affect the senses. There is not any thing in the world, which may not be compared to several things, if considered in several distinct lights; or, in other words, the same thing may be expressed by dif ferent metaphors. But the mischief is, that an unskilful author shall run their metaphors so absurdly into one another, that there shall be no simile, no agreeable picture, no apt resemblance, but confusion, obscurity, and noise. Thus I have known a hero compared to a thunderbolt, a lion, and the sea; all and each of them proper metaphors for impetuosity, courage, or force. But by bad management it hath so happened, that the thunderbolt hath overflowed its banks; the lion hath

been darted through the skies, and the billows have rolled ont of the Libyan desert.

The absurdity in this instance is obvious. And yet every time that clashing metaphors are put together, the fault is committed more or less. It hath already been said, that metaphors are images of things which affect the senses. An image, therefore, taken from what acts upon the sight, cannot, without violence, be applied to the hearing; and so of the rest. It is no less an impropriety to make any being in nature or art to do things in its metaphorical state, which it could not do in its original. I shall illustrate what I have said by an instance which I have read more than once in controversial writers. "The heavy lashes," saith a celebrated anthor, " that have dropped from your pen," &c. I suppose this gentleman having frequently heard of "gall dropping from a pen, and be ing lashed in a satire," he was resolved to have them both at any rate, and so uttered this complete piece of nonsense. It will most effectually discover the absurdity of these monstrous unions, if we will suppose these metaphors or images actually painted. Imagine then a hand holding a pen, and several lashes of whipcord falling from it, and you have the true representation of this sort of eloquence. I believe, by this very rule, a reader may be able to judge of the union of all metaphors whatsoever, and determine which are ho mogeneous, and which heterogeneous; or, to speak more plainly, which are consistent, and which inconsistent.

There is yet one evil more which I must take notice of, and that is the running of metaphors into tedious allegories; which, though an error on the better hand, causes confusion as much as the other. This becomes abominable, when the lustre of one word leads a writer out of his road, and makes him wander from his subject for a page together. I remember a young fellow, of this turn, who having said by chance that his mistress had a world of charms, thereupon took occa.

sion to consider her as one possessed of frigid and torrid zones, and pursued her from the one pole to the other.

I shall conclude this paper with a letter written in that enormous style, which I hope my reader hath by this time set his heart against. The epistle hath heretofore received great applause; but after what hath been said, let any man commend it if he dare.

"Sir,

"After the many heavy lashes that have fallen from your pen, you may justly expect in return all the load that my ink can lay upon your shoulders. You have quartered all the foul language upon me, that could be raked out of the air of Billingsgate, without knowing who I am, or whether I deserve to be cupped and sacrificed at this rate. I tell you once for all, turn your eyes where you please, you shall never smell me out. Do you think that the panics, which you sow about the parish, will ever build a monument to your glory? No, sir, you may fight these battles as long as you will, but when you come to balance the account, you will find that you have been fishing in troubled waters, and that an ignis fatuus hath bewildered yon, and that indeed you have built upon a sandy foundation, and brought your hogs to a fair market.

"I am, Sir,

"Yours, &c.

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