ALLEGORY, in composition, consists in choosing a secondary subject, having all its properties and circumstances resembling those of the principal subject, and describing the former in such a manner as to represent the latter. The principal subject is thus kept out of view, and we are left to discover it by reflection. In other words, an allegory is, in every respect, similar to an hieroglyphical painting, excepting only that words are used instead of colours. Their effects are precisely the same: An hieroglyphic raises two images in the mind; one seen, that represents one that is not seen: An allegory does the same; the representative subject is described, and the resemblance leads us to apply the description to the subject represented.
There cannot be a finer or more correct allegory than the following, in which a vineyard is made to represent God's own people the Jews:
"Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt; thou
hast cast out the heathen, and planted it. Thou didst
cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land. The
hills were covered with its shadow, and the boughs
thereof were like the goodly cedars. Why hast thou
then broken down her hedges, so that all that pass
do pluck her? The boar out of the wood doth waste
it, and the wild beast doth devour it. Return, we
beseech thee, O God of hosts: look down from hea-
ven, and behold, and visit this vine and the vineyard
thy right-hand hath planted, and the branch thou
madest strong for thyself." Psal. lxxx.
Nothing gives greater pleasure than an allegory, when the representative subject bears a strong analogy, in all its circumstances, to that which is represented. But most writers are unlucky in their choice, the analogy being generally so faint and obscure, as rather to puzzle than to please. Allegories, as well as metaphors and similes, are unnatural in expressing any severe passion which totally occupies the mind. For this reason, the following speech of Macbeth is justly condemned by the learned author of the Elements of Criticism:
Methought I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more!
Macbeth doth murder Sleep; the innocent sleep;
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of Care,
The birth of each day's life, sore Labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast. Act. ii. Sc. 3.
But see this subject more fully treated under the article METAPHOR and Allegory.