in saying, negatur consequens; for it is entirely detached both from the major and minor proposition. This soliloquy is not less exceptionable in the propriety of expression, than in the chain of argumentation. "Todie-to sleep -no more," contains an ambiguity, which all the art of punctuation cannot remove; for it may signify that "to die" is to sleep no more; or the expression "no more may be considered as an abrupt apostrophe in thinking, as if he meant to say "no more of that reflection.' "Ay, there's the rub," is a vulgarism beneath the dignity of Hamlet's character, and the words that follow leave the sense imperfect: For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Not the dreams that might come, but the fear of what dreams might come, occasioned the pause or hesitation. Respect in the same line may be allowed to pass for consideration: but The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, according to the invariable acceptation of the words wrong and contumely, can signify nothing but the wrongs sustained by the oppressor, and the contumely or abuse thrown upon the proud man; though it is plain that Shakespeare used them in a different sense: neither is the word spurn a substantive, yet as such he has inserted it in these lines: The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th' unworthy takes. If we consider the metaphors of the soliloquy, we shall find them jumbled together in a strange confusion. If the metaphors were reduced to painting, we should find it a very difficult task, if not altogether impracticable, to represent with any propriety outrageous fortune using her slings and arrows, between which, indeed, there is no sort of analogy in nature. Neither can any figure be more ridiculously absurd than that of a man taking arms against a sea, exclusive of the incongruous medley of slings, arrows, and seas, justled within the compass of one reflection. What follows is a strange rhapsody of broken images of sleeping, dreaming, and shifting off a coil, which last conveys no idea that can be represented on canvas. A man may be exhibited shuffling off his garments, or his chains; but how he should shuffle off a coil, which is another term for noise and tumult, we cannot comprehend. Then we have “longlived calamity," and "time armed with whips and scorns;" and "patient merit spurned at by unworthiness;" and "misery with a bare bodkin going to make his own quietus," which at best is but a mean metaphor. These are followed by figures, 'sweating under fardels of burdens,' puzzled with doubts," "shaking with fears," and "flying from evils.' Finally, we see "resolution sicklied o'er with pale thought," a conception like that of representing health by sickness; and a “current of pith turned awry, so as to lose the name of action," which is both an error in fancy, and a solecism in sense. In a word, the soliloquy may be compared to the Ægri somnia and the Tabula, cujus vanæ finguntur species. But while we censure the chaos of broken, incongruous metaphors, we ought also to caution the young poet against the opposite extreme of pursuing a metaphor, until the spirit is quite exhausted in a succession of cold conceits; such as we see in the following letter, said to be sent by Tamerlane to the Turkish Emperor Bajazet. "Where is the monarch that dares oppose our arms? Where is the potentate who doth not glory in being numbered among our vassals? As for thee, descended from a Turcoman mariner, since the vessel of thy unbounded ambition hath been wrecked in the gulf of thy self-love, it would be proper that thou shouldst furl the sails of thy temerity, and cast the anchor of repentance in the port of sincerity and justice, which is the harbour of safety; lest the tempest of our vengeance make thee perish in the sea of that punishment thou hast deserved." But if these laboured conceits are ridiculous in poetry, they are still more inexcusable in prose: such as we find them frequently occur in Strada's Bellum Belgicum: "Vix descenderat à prætoria navi Cæsar, cùm foeda ilico exorta in portu tempestas; classem impetu disjecit, prætoriam hausit, quasi non vecturam amplius Cæsarem Cæsarisque fortunam."-"Cæsar had scarcely set his feet on shore, when a terrible tempest arising, shattered the fleet even in the harbour, and sent to the bottom the prætorian ship, as if he resolved it should no longer carry Cæsar and his fortunes." Yet this is modest in comparison of the following flowers: "Alii, pulsis è tormento catenis discerpti sectique, dimidiato corpore pugnabant sibi superstites, ac peremptæ partis ultores. Others, dissevered and cut in twain by chain-shot, fought with one half of their bodies that remained, in revenge of the other half that was slain." Homer, Horace, and even the chaste Virgil, is not free from conceits. The latter, speaking of a man's hand cut off in battle, says, Te decisa suum, Laride, dextera quærit : tractant: thus enduing the amputated hand with sense and volition. This, to be sure, is a violent figure, and hath been justly condemned by some accurate critics; but we think they are too severe in extending the same censure to some other passages in the most admired authors. Virgil, in his sixth Eclogue, says: beatus Audiit Eurotas, jussitque ediscere lauros, Racine adopts the same bold figure in his Le flot qui l'apporta recule épouvanté. The wave that bore him backwards shrunk appall'd. Even Milton has indulged himself in the same license of expression: As when to them who sail Cheer'd with the grateful smell, old Ocean smiles. I've seen Th' ambitious ocean swell, and rage, and foam, And indeed more correct writers, both ancient and modern, abound with the same kind of figure, which is reconciled to propriety, and even invested with beauty, by the efficacy of the prosopopoeia, which personifies the object. Thus, when Virgil says Enipeus heard the songs of Apollo, he raises up, as by enchantment, the idea of a river god crowned with sedges, his head raised above the stream, and in his countenance the expression of pleased attention. By the same magic we see, in the couplet quoted from Pope's Pastorals, old father Thames leaning upon his urn, and listening to the poet's strain. Thus in the regions of poetry all nature, even the passions and affections of the mind, may be personified into picturesque figures for the entertainment of the Whate'er, when Phoebus bless'd the Arcadian reader. Ocean smiles or frowns, as the plain, Eurotas heard and taught his bays the strain, sea is calm or tempestuous; a Triton rules on every angry billow; every mountain has its Nymph; every stream its Naiad; And Pope has copied the conceit in his every tree its Hamadryad; and every art Pastorals: Thames heard the numbers as he flow'd along, sus. Say, heavenly muse, their youthful frays re- Begin, ye daughters of immortal verse : its Genius. We cannot, therefore, assent O vale of bliss! O softly swelling hills! We cannot conceive a more beautiful image than that of the Genius of Agriculture, distinguished by the implements of his art, imbrowned with labour, glowing with health, crowned with a garland of foliage, flowers, and fruit, lying stretched at his ease on the brow of a gentle swelling hill, and contemplating with pleasure the happy effects of his own industry. Neither can we join issue against Shakespeare for this comparison, which hath likewise incurred the censure of the critics: -The noble sister of Poplicola, The moon of Rome; chaste as the icicle That's curdled by the frost from purest snow, And hangs on Dian's temple This is no more than illustrating a quality of the mind, by comparing it with a sensible object. If there is no impropriety in saying such a man is true as steel, firm as a rock, inflexible as an oak, unsteady as the ocean; or in describing a disposition cold as ice, or fickle as the wind-and these expressions are justified by constant practice-we shall hazard an assertion, that the comparison of a chaste woman to an icicle is proper and picturesque, as it obtains only in the circumstances of cold and purity; but that the addition of its being curdled from the purest snow, and hanging on the temple of Diana, the patroness of virginity, heightens the whole into a most beautiful simile, that gives a very respectable and amiable idea of the character in question. The simile is no more than an extended metaphor, introduced to illustrate and beautify the subject; it ought to be apt, striking, properly pursued, and adorned with all the graces of poetical melody. But a simile of this kind ought never to proceed from the mouth of a person under any great agitation of spirit; such as a tragic character overwhelmed with grief, distracted by contending cares, or agonising in the pangs of death. The language of passion will not admit simile, which is always the result of study and deliberation. We will not allow a hero the privilege of a dying swan, which is said to chant its approaching fate in the most melodious strain; and therefore nothing can be more ridiculously unnatural than the representation of a lover dying upon the stage with a laboured simile in his mouth. The Orientals, whose language was extremely figurative, have been very careless in the choice of their similes; provided the resemblance obtained in one circumstance, they minded not whether they disagreed with the subject in every other respect. Many instances of this defect in congruity may be culled from the most sublime parts of Scripture. Homer has been blamed for the bad choice of his similes on some particular occasions. He compares Ajax to an ass, in the Iliad, and Ulysses to a steak broiling on the coals, in the Odyssey. His admirers have endeavoured to excuse him, by reminding us of the simplicity of the age in which he wrote; but they have not been able to prove that any ideas of dignity or importance were, even in those days, affixed to the character of an ass, or the quality of a beef collop; therefore they were very improper illustrations for any situation in which a hero ought to be represented. Virgil has degraded the wife of King Latinus, by comparing her, when she was actuated by the Fury, to a top which the boys lash for diversion. This, doubtless, is a low image, though in other respects the comparison is not destitute of propriety: but he is much more justly censured for the following simile, which has no sort of reference to the subject. Speaking of Turnus, he says: -medio dux agmine Turnus But Turnus, chief amidst the warrior train, streams return. but they bear no sort of resemblance to a These, no doubt, are majestic images : hero glittering in armour at the head of his forces. Horace has been ridiculed by some shrewd critics for this comparison, which, however, we think is more defensible than the former. Addressing himself to Munatius Plancus, he says: Albus ut obscuro deterget nubila cœlo The analogy, it must be confessed, is not very striking; but, nevertheless, it is not altogether void of propriety. The poet reasons thus: as the south wind, though generally attended with rain, is often known to dispel the clouds, and render the weather serene; so do you, though generally on the rack of thought, remember To relax sometimes, and drown your cares in wine. As the south wind is not always moist, so you ought not always to be dry. A few instances of inaccuracy, or mediocrity, can never derogate from the superlative merit of Homer and Virgil, whose poems are the great magazines, replete with every species of beauty and magnificence, particularly abounding with similes, which astonish, delight, and transport the reader. Every simile ought not only to be well adapted to the subject, but also to include every excellence of description, and to be coloured with the warmest tints of poetry. Nothing can be more happily hit off than the following in the Georgics, to which the poet compares Orpheus lamenting his lost Eurydice: Qualis populeâ morens Philomela sub umbrâ On some lone bough the warbler takes her stand; Here we not only find the most scrupulous propriety, and the happiest choice, in comparing the Thracian bard to Philomel, the poet of the grove; but also the most beautiful description, containing a fine touch of the pathos-in which last particular, indeed, Virgil, in our opinion, excels all other poets, whether ancient or modern. One would imagine that nature had exhausted itself, in order to embellish the poems of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, with similes and metaphors. The first of these very often uses the comparison of the wind, the whirlwind, the hail, the torrent, to express the rapidity of his combatants; but when he comes to describe the velocity of the immortal horses that drew the chariot of Juno, he raises his ideas to the subject, and, as Longinus observes, measures every leap by the whole breadth of the horizon. Οσσον δ ̓ ἠεροειδὲς ἀνὴρ ἴδεν ὀφθαλμοῖσιν Ημενος ἐν σκοπιῇ, λεύσσων ἐπὶ οἴνοπα πόντον, Τόσσον ἐπιθρώσκουσι θεῶν ὑψηχέες ἵπποι. For, as a watchman, from some rock on high, O'er the wide main extends his boundless eye; Through such a space of air, with thund'ring sound, At every leap th' immortal coursers bound. The celerity of this goddess seems to be a favourite idea with the poet; for in another place he compares it to the thought of a traveller revolving in his mind the different places he had seen, and passing through them, in imagination, more swift than the lightning flies from east to west. In the third Homer's best similes have been copied by Virgil and almost every succeeding poet, howsoever they may have varied in the manner of expression. book of the Iliad, Menelaus seeing Paris is compared to a hungry lion espying a hind or goat: Ωστε λέων ἐχάρη μεγάλῳ ἐπὶ σώματι κύρσας Εὐρὼν ἢ ἔλαφον κεραόν, ἢ ἄγριον αἶγα, Then, as a hungry lion, who beholds in imitation of this hyperbole, exhibits Illa vel intactæ segetis per summa volaret This elegant author, we are afraid, has, into the frigid, in straining to improve upon some other occasions, degenerated upon his great master. Homer, in the Odyssey, a work which Longinus does not scruple to charge with bearing the marks of old age, describes a The reader will perceive that Virgil has improved the simile in one particular, and in another fallen short of his original. The description of the lion shaking his mane, opening his hideous jaws distained with the blood of his prey, is great and picturesque; but, on the other hand, he has omitted the circumstance of devouring it without being intimidated or restrained | Σύν δ' Εὐρός τε, Νοτός τ ̓ ἔπεσε, Ζεφυρός by the dogs and youths that surround τε δυσαὴς, storm in which all the four winds were concerned together: δων. hima circumstance that adds greatly to Καὶ Βορέης αιθρηγενέτης μέγα λύμα κυλίν our idea of his strength, intrepidity, and importance. ESSAY XVII. Hyperbole. Of all the figures in poetry, that called the hyperbole is managed with the greatest difficulty. The hyperbole is an exagge ration with which the Muse is indulged for the better illustration of her subject, when she is warmed into enthusiasm. Quintilian calls it an ornament of the bolder kind. Demetrius Phalereus is still He says the hyperbole is of all forms of speech the most frigid; Máλιστα δὲ ἡ ὑπερβολὴ ψυχρότατον πάντων: but this must be understood with some grains of allowance. Poetry is animated by the passions; and all the passions exaggerate. Passion itself is a magnifying more severe. medium. There are beautiful instances of the hyperbole in the Scripture, which a reader of sensibility cannot read without being strongly affected. The difficulty lies in choosing such hyperboles as the subject will admit of; for, according to the definition of Theophrastus, the frigid in style is that which exceeds the expression suitable to the subject. The judgment does not revolt against Homer for representing the horses of Ericthonius running over the standing corn without breaking off the heads, because the whole is considered as a fable, and the north wind is represented as their sire; but the imagination is a little startled, when Virgil, We know that such a contention of contrary blasts could not possibly exist in nature; for, even in hurricanes, the winds blow alternately from different points of the description, and adds to its extracompass. Nevertheless, Virgil adopts the vagance : Incubuere mari, totumque à sedibus imis Africus. Here the winds not only blow together, but they turn the whole body of the ocean topsy-turvy: East, west, and south, engage with furious sweep, And from its lowest bed upturn the foaming deep. The north wind, however, is still more mischievous: -Stridens aquilone procella The motion of the sea between Scylla and Charybdis is still more magnified; and Etna is exhibited as throwing out volumes of flame which brush the stars. Such expressions as these are not intended as a real representation of the thing speci fied: they are designed to strike the reader's imagination; but they generally serve as marks of the author's sinking under his own ideas, who, apprehensive |