COWLEY, vol. i. p. 132.
Such a play of words is pleasant in a ludicrous poem.
Almeria. O Alphonso, Alphonso!
Devouring seas have wash'd thee from my sight,
No time shall raze thee from my memory:
No, I will live to be thy monument:
The cruel ocean is no more thy tomb;
But in my heart thou art interr'd.
Mourning Bride, act i. sc. 1.
This would be very right, if there were any inconsistency in being interr'd in one place really, and in another place figuratively.
From considering that a word used in a figurative sense suggests at the same time its proper meaning, we discover a fifth rule, That we ought not to employ a word in a figurative sense, the proper sense of which is inconsistent or incongruous with the subject: for every inconsistency, and even incongruity, though in the expression only and not real, is unpleasant:
Interea genitor Tyberini ad fluminis undam,
Vulnera succubant lymphis.
Æneid. book x. l. 833.
Tres adeo incertos cæca caligine soles
Erramus pelago, totidem sine fidere noctes.
Æneid. book iii. l. 203.
The foregoing rule may be extended to form a sixth, That no epithet ought to be given to the figurative sense of a word that agrees not also with its proper sense:
————— Dicat Opuntie
Frater Megillæ, quo beatus
Vulneri. HORAT. Carm. lib. i. ode 27.
Parcus deorum cultor, et infrequens,
Infantis dum sapientie
Consultos erro. HORAT. Carm. lib. i. ode 54.
Seventhly, The crowding into one period or thought different figures of speech, is not less faulty than crowding metaphors in that manner: the mind is distracted in the quick transition from one image to another, and is puzzled instead of being pleased:
I am of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck'd the honey of his music vows. Hamlet.
My bleeding bosom sickens at the sound.
Odyssey, book i. l. 439.
————— Ah miser,
Quanta laboris in Charybdi!
Digne puer meliore flamma.
Quæ saga, quis te solvere Theffalis
Magus venenis, qua poterit Deus:
Vix illigatum tetriformi
Pegasus expediet Chimera.