to exhibit a table of the different relations that

may

give occasion to this figure. And in viewing the table, it will be observed, that the figure can never have any grace but where the relations are of the most intimate kind.

1. An attribute of the cause expressed as an attribute of the effect.

Audax facinus.

Of yonder fleet a bold discovery make.

An impious mortal gave the daring wound.

To my advent'rous song,

That with no middle flight intends to soar.

Paradise Lost.

2. An attribute of the effect expressed as an attribute of the cause.

: Quos periisse ambos misera censebam in mari.

No wonder, fallen such a pernicious height.

Plautus

Paradise Lost.

3. An effect expressed as an attribute of the

cause.

Jovial wine, Giddy brink, Drowsy night, Musing midnight, Panting height, Astonish'd thought, Mournful gloom.

Casting a dim religious light.

And the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecks sound.

Milton, Comus.

Milton, Allegro.

4. An attribute of a subject bestowed upon one of its parts or members.

Longing arms.

It was the nightingale, and not the lark,

That pierc'd the fearful hollow of thine ear.

Romeo and Juliet, Act III. Sc. 5.

Oh, lay by

Those most ungentle looks and angry weapons;
Unless you mean my griefs and killing fears
Should stretch me out at your relentless feet.

And ready now

Fair Penitent, Act III.

To stoop with wearied wing and willing feet,
On the bare outside of this world.

Paradise Lost, B. 3.

5. A quality of the agent given to the instru ment with which it operates.

Why peep your coward swords half out their shells?

6. An attribute of the agent given to the subject upon which it operates.

High-climbing hill.

Milton.

7. A quality of one subject given to another.

Icci, beatis nunc Arabum invides

Gazis.

Horat. Carm. 1. 1. ode 29.

When sapless age, and weak unable limbs,
Should bring thy father to his drooping chair.

VOL. II.

Shakespeare.

By art, the pilot through the boiling deep
And howling tempest, steers the fearless ship.
Iliad, xxiii. 385.

Then, nothing loath, th' enamour'd fair he led,
And sunk transported on the conscious bed.

Odyssey, viii. 397.

A stupid moment motionless she stood.

Summer, t. 1336.

8. A circumstance connected with a subject, expressed as a quality of the subject.

Breezy summit.

'Tis ours the chance of fighting fields to try.

Iliad, i. 301.

Oh! had I died before that well-fought wall.

Odyssey, v. 395.

From this table it appears, that the adorning a cause with an attribute of the effect, is not so agreeable as the opposite expression. The progress from cause to effect is natural and easy: the opposite progress resembles retrograde motion; and therefore panting height, astonish'd thought, are strained and uncouth expressions, which a writer of taste will avoid,

It is not less strained, to apply to a subject in its present state, an epithet that may belong to it in some future state:

Submersasque obrue puppes.

Eneid. i. 73.

* See Chap. 1.

And mighty ruins fall.

Iliad, v. 411.

Impious sons their mangled fathers wound.

Another rule regards this figure, That the property of one subject ought not to be bestowed upon another with which that property is incongruous;

King Rich. How dare thy joints forget To pay their awful duty to our presence?

Richard II. Act 111. Sc. 3.

The connexion between an awful superior and his submissive dependent is so intimate, that an attribute may readily be transferred from the one to the other; but awfulness cannot be so transferred, because it is inconsistent with submission.

SECT. VI.-Metaphor and Allegory.

A METAPHOR differs from a simile, in form only, not in substance: in a simile, the two subjects are kept distinct in the expression, as well as in the thought; in a metaphor, the two subjects are kept distinct in the thought only, not in the expression. A hero resembles a lion, and, upon that resemblance, many similies have been raised by Homer and other poets. But instead of resembling a lion, let us take the aid of the imagination, and feign or figure the hero to be a lion: by that variation the simile is converted into a metaphor; which is carried on by describing all the qualities of a lion that resemble those of the hero. The fundamental pleasure here, that of resemblance, belongs to the

thought. An additional pleasure arises from the expression the poet, by figuring his hero to be a lion, goes on to describe the lion in appearance, but in reality the hero; and his description is peculiarly beautiful, by expressing the virtues and qualities of the hero in new terms, which, properly speaking, belong not to him, but to the lion. This will better be understood by examples. A family connected with a common parent, resembles a tree, the trunk and branches of which are connected with a common root: but let us suppose, that a family is figured, not barely to be like a tree, but to be a tree; and then the simile will be converted into a metaphor, in the following manner :

Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one,
Were seven fair branches, springing from one root:
Some of these branches by the dest'nies cut;
But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Glo'ster,
One flourishing branch of his most royal root,
Is hack'd down, and his summer-leaves all faded
By Envy's hand, and Murder's bloody axe.

Richard II. Act 1. Sc. 2.

Figuring human life to be a voyage at sea:

There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,

And we must take the current while it serves,

Or lose our ventures.

Julius Caesar, Act IV. Sc. 3.