in Rhetoric. See ORATORY, No 54.

Metaphor and Allegory, in poetry.—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 similes 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 similes will be converted into a metaphor, in the following manner:

Edward's sev'n sons, whereof thyself art one, Were sev'n fair branches, springing from one root; Some of these branches by the devil's cut: But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Glo'ffler, 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 i. sc. 3.

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 when it serves, Or lose our ventures. Julius Caesar, act iv. sc. 5.

Figuring glory and honour to be a garland of flowers:

Hotspur. Would to heav'n, Thy name in arms were now as great as mine! Pr. Henry, I'll make it greater ere I part from thee; And all the bussing honours on thy crest I'll crop, to make a garland for my head.

First Part of Henry IV. act v. sc. 9.

Figuring a man who hath acquired great reputation and honour to be a tree full of fruit:

Oh, boys, this story The world may read in me; my body's mark'd With Roman swords; and my report was once First with the best of note. Cymbeline lov'd me; And when a soldier was the theme, my name Was not far off; then was I as a tree, Whose boughs did bend with fruit. But in one night, A storm or robbery, call it what you will, Shook down my mellow hangings, nay, my leaves; And left me bare to wither.

Cymbeline, act iii. sc. 3.

"Blest be thy soul, thou king of shells, said Swaran of the dark-brown shield. In peace, thou art the gale of spring; in war, the mountain-storm. Take now my hand in friendship, thou noble king of Morven."

Fingal.

"Thou dwellest in the soul of Malvina, son of mighty Offian. My sighs arise with the beam of the east: my tears descend with the drops of night. I was a lovely tree in thy presence, Ossar, with all my branches round me: but thy death came like a blast from the desert," Metaphor. desert, and laid my green head low; the spring returned with its showers, but no leaf of mine arose." Fingal.

An allegory differs from a metaphor; and a figure of speech differs from both. A metaphor is defined above to be an act of the imagination, figuring one thing to be another. An allegory requires no such operation, nor is one thing figured to be another: it consists in choosing a subject having properties or circumstances resembling those of the principal subject: and the former is described in such a manner as to represent the latter: the subject thus represented is kept out of view: we are left to discover it by reflection; and we are pleased with the discovery, because it is our own work. (See the word Allegory).

Quintilian gives the following instance of an allegory. O navis, referent in mare te novi Fluctus. O quid agis? fortiter occupa portum. Horat. lib. i. ode 14.

and explains it elegantly in the following words: "Totutque ille Horatii locus, quo navim pro republica, fluctuum temptates pro bellis civilibus, portum pro pace atque concordia, dicit."

In a figure of speech, there is no fiction of the imagination employed, as in a metaphor; nor a representative subject introduced, as in an allegory. This figure, as its name implies, regards the expression only, not the thought; and it may be defined, the using a word in a sense different from what is proper to it.—Thus youth, or the beginning of life, is expressed figuratively by morning of life: morning is the beginning of the day; and in that view it is employed to signify the beginning of any other series, life (especially), the progress of which is reckoned by days. See Figure of Speech.

Metaphor and allegory are so much connected, that it seemed proper to handle them together: the rules particularly for distinguishing the good from the bad, are common to both. We shall therefore proceed to these rules, after adding some examples to illustrate the nature of an allegory, which, with a view to this article, was but slightly illustrated under its proper name.

Horace, speaking of his love to Pyrrha, which was now extinguished, expressed himself thus: ———Ms tabula facer Votivâ paries indicat uvida Suspendit potenti Vellimenta maris Deo. Carm. lib. i. ods 5.

Again: Phoebus volentem praelia me loqui, Viitas et urbes, increpit, lyra Ne parva Tyrrhenum per æquor Vela darem. Carm. lib. iv. ode 15.

Queen. Great lords, wise men ne'er fit and wail their los, But cheerly feck how to redrefs their harms. What though the maut be now blown overboard, The cable broke, the holding anchor lost, And half our sailors swallowed in the flood! Yet lives our pilot still. Is't meet that he Should leave the helm, and, like a fearful lad,

With tearful eyes add water to the sea, And give more strength to that which hath too much; While in his moan the ship splits on the rock, Which industry and courage might have sav'd? Ah, what a shame! ah, what a fault were this! Third Part of Henry VI. act v. sc. 5.

Oroonoko. Ha! thou hast rous'd The lion in his den; he stalks abroad, And the wide forest trembles at his roar. I find the danger now. Oroonoko, act iii. sc. 2.

"My well beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill. He fenced it, gathered out the stones thereof, planted it with the choicest vine, built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a wine press therein; he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? And now go to, I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down. And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged, but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant." Isaiah v. 1.

The rules that govern metaphors and allegories are of two kinds. The construction of these figures comes under the first kind: the propriety or impropriety of introduction comes under the other.—To begin with rules of the first kind; some of which coincide with those already given for similes; some are peculiar to metaphors and allegories.

In the first place, It has been observed, that a simile cannot be agreeable where the resemblance is either too strong or too faint. This holds equally in metaphor and allegory; and the reason is the same in all. In the following instances, the resemblance is too faint to be agreeable.

Malcolm. ————But there's no bottom, none, In my voluptuousness: your wives, your daughters, Your matrons, and your maids, could not fill up The cistern of my lust. Macbeth, act iv. sc. 4.

The best way to judge of this metaphor, is to convert it into a simile: which would be bad, because there is scarce any resemblance between lust and a cistern, or betwixt enormous lust and a large cistern.

Again: He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause Within the belt of rule. Macbeth, act v. sc. 2.

There is no resemblance between a distempered cause and any body that can be confined within a belt.

Again: Steep me in poverty to the very lips. Othello, act iv. sc. 9. Poverty Metaphor. Poverty here must be conceived a fluid, which it resembles not in any manner.

Speaking to Bolingbroke banished for six years: The fullness passage of thy weary steps Esteem a foil, wherein thou art to let The precious jewel of thy home return. Richard II. act ii. sc. 6.

Again: Here is a letter, lady, And every word in it a gaping wound Issuing life-blood. Merchant of Venice, act iii. sc. 3.

Tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem. Aeneid. i. 37.

The following metaphor is strained beyond all endurance: Timur beg, known to us by the name of Tamerlane the Great, writes to Bajazet emperor of the Ottomans in the following terms:

"Where is the monarch who dares resist us? where is the potentate who doth not glory in being numbered among our attendants? As for thee, descended from a Turcoman sailor, since the vessel of thy unbounded ambition hath been wreck'd in the gulf of thy self-love, it would be proper, that thou shouldst take in the sails of thy temerity, and cast the anchor of repentance in the port of sincerity and justice, which is the port of safety; lest the tempest of our vengeance make thee perish in the sea of the punishment thou deservest."

Such strained figures, as observed above, are not unfrequent in the first dawn of refinement; the mind in a new enjoyment knows no bounds, and is generally carried to excess, till taste and experience discover the proper limits.

Secondly. Whatever resemblance subjects may have, it is wrong to put one for another, where they bear no mutual proportion. Upon comparing a very high to a very low subject, the simile takes on an air of burlesque: and the same will be the effect where the one is imagined to be the other, as in a metaphor; or made to represent the other, as in an allegory.

Thirdly. These figures, a metaphor especially, ought not to be crowded with many minute circumstances; for in that case it is scarcely possible to avoid obscurity. A metaphor above all ought to be short: it is difficult, for any time, to support a lively image of a thing being what we know it is not; and for that reason, a metaphor drawn out to any length, instead of illustrating or enlivening the principal subject, becomes disagreeable by overstraining the mind. Here Cowley is extremely licentious. Take the following instance.

Great and wise conqueror, who where'er Thou com'st, dost fortify and settle there! Who canst defend as well as get; And never hadst one quarter beat up yet; Now thou art in, thou ne'er wilt part With one inch of my vanquish'd heart; For since thou took'st it by assault from me 'Tis garrison's so strong with thoughts of thee, It fears no beauteous enemy.

For the same reason, however agreeable long allegories may at first be by their novelty, they never afford any lasting pleasure: witness the Faery Queen, which with great power of expression, variety of images, and melody of versification, is scarce ever read a second time.

In the fourth place, The comparison carried on in a simile, being in a metaphor lunk by imagining the principal subject to be that very thing which it only resembles; an opportunity is furnished to describe it in terms taken strictly or literally with respect to its imagined nature. This suggests another rule, That in constructing a metaphor, the writer ought to make use of such words only as are applicable literally to the imagined nature of his subject: figurative words ought carefully to be avoided; for such complicated figures, instead of setting the principal subject in a strong light, involve it in a cloud, and it is well if the reader, without rejecting by the lump, endeavour patiently to gather the plain meaning, regardless of the figures:

A stubborn and unconquerable flame Creeps in his veins, and drinks the streams of life. Lady Jane Gray, act i. sc. 1.

Copied from Ovid:

Sorbent avidae praecordia flammæ. Metamorph. lib. ix. 172.

Let us analyze this expression. That a fever may be imagined a flame, we admit: though more than one step is necessary to come at the resemblance: a fever, by heating the body, resembles fire; and it is no stretch to imagine a fever to be a fire: again, by a figure of speech, flame may be put for fire, because they are commonly conjoined; and therefore a fever may be termed a flame. But now admitting a fever to be a flame, its effects ought to be explained in words that agree literally to a flame. This rule is not observed here; for a flame drinks figuratively only, not properly.

King Henry to his son Prince Henry:

Thou hid'rt a thousand daggers in thy thoughts, Which thou hast whetted on thy stony heart To stab at half an hour of my frail life. Second Part Henry IV. act iv. sc. ii.

Such faulty metaphors are pleasantly ridiculed in the Rehearsal:

Physician. Sir, to conclude, the place you fill has more than amply exacted the talents of a wary pilot; and all these threatening storms, which, like impregnate clouds, hover o'er our heads, will, when they once are grasp'd but by the eye of reason, melt into fruitful showers of blessings on the people.

"Bayes. Pray mark that allegory. Is not that good? "Johnson. Yes, that grasping of a storm with the eye is admirable. Act ii. sc. 1.

Fifthly, The jumbling different metaphors in the same sentence, beginning with one metaphor and ending with another, commonly called a mixt metaphor, ought never to be indulged.

K. Henry. K. Henry. ——Will you again unknit This charlifh knot of all abhorred war, And move in that obedient orb again, Where you did give a fair and natural light? First Part Henry VI. act v. sc. 1.

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune; Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by oppofing end them.

Hamlet, act iii. sc. 2.

In the fifth place, It is unpleasant to join different metaphors in the same period, even where they are preferred ditinct: for when the subject is imagined to be first one thing and then another in the same period without interval, the mind is diftracted by the rapid transition; and when the imagination is put on such hard duty, its images are too faint to produce any good effect:

At regina gravi jamdudum faucia cura, Vulnus alti venis, et cæco carpitur igni. Aeneid. iv. 1.

———Est mollis flamma medullas Interea, et tacitum vivit sub pector vulnus. Aeneid. iv. 66.

Motum ex Metello consule civicum, Bellique causas, et vitia, et modos, Ludiumque fortune, gravefique Principium amicitias, et arma Nondum expiatis uncta cruoribus, Periculoſe plenum opus alee, Tractas, et incedis per ignes Subpoftos cineri dolofo. Horat. Carm. lib. ii. ode 1.

In the last place, It is still worse to jumble together metaphorical and natural expression, fo as that the period must be understood in part metaphorically, in part literally; for the imagination cannot follow with sufficient ease changes so sudden and unprepared: a metaphor begun and not carried on, hath no beauty; and instead of light there is nothing but obscurity and confusion. Instances of such incorrect composition are without number: we shall, for a specimen, select a few from different authors. Speaking of Britain,

——This precious stone fet in the sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of lefs happier lands. Richard II. act ii. sc. 1.

In the first line Britain is figured to be a precious stone: in the following line, Britain, divested of her metaphorical dress, is presented to the reader in her natural appearance.

These growing feathers pluck'd from Caesar's wing, Will make him fly an ordinary pitch, Who else would soar above the view of men, And keep us all in fervile fearfulness. Julius Caesar, act i. sc. 1.

Rebus anguis animosus atque! Fortis adspire: sapienter idem Contrahes vento nimium fecundo Turgida vela. Hor. Carm. lib. ii. ode 10.

The following is a miserable jumble of expressions, arising from an unsteady view of the subject, between its figurative and natural appearance:

But now from gath'ring clouds destruction pours, Which ruins with mad rage our halcyon hours: Mists from black jealousies the tempest form, Whilst late divisions reinforce the storm.

Dispensary, canto iii.

To thee the world its present homage pays, The harvest early, but mature the praise. Pope's Imitation of Horace, book ii.

Oui, fa pudeur ne't que franche grimace, Qu'une ombre de vertu qui garde mal la place, Et qui s'évanouit, comme l'on peut favor, Aux rayons du soleil qu'une boufe vait voir. Moliere, L'Etourdi, act iii. sc. 2.

Et son feu, de pourvû de fenfe et de lecture, S'éteint à chaque pas, faut de nourriture. Boileau, L'Art Poétique, chant. iii. l. 319.

Dryden, in his dedication of the translation of Juvenal, says, "When thus, as I may say, before the use of the loadstone, or knowledge of the compass, I was sailing in a vast ocean, without other help than the pole-star of the ancients, and the rules of the French stage among the moderns," &c.

"There is a time when factions, by the vehemence of their own fermentation, stun and disable one another." Bolingbroke.

This fault of jumbling the figure and plain expression into one confused mass, is not less common in allegory than in metaphor.

Take the following examples:

———Heu! quoties fidelm, Mutatosque Deos flebit, et afpera Nigris acquora ventis Emirabitur insolens, Qui nunc te fruitur credulus aureâ: Qui semper vacuam, semper amabilem Sprat, necfius aure Fallacis. Horat. Carm. lib. i. ode 5.

Pour moi sur cette mer, qu'ici bas nous courons, Je songe à me pourvoir d'esquif et d'avirons, A regler mes defires, à prévenir l'orage, Et sauver, s'il se peut, ma Raison du naufrage. Boileau, epitre 5.

Lord Halifax, speaking of the ancient fabulists: "They (says he) wrote in signs, and spoke in parables: all their fables carry a double meaning: the story is one, and entire; the characters the same throughout; not broken or changed, and always conformable to the nature of the creature they introduce. They never tell you, that the dog which snapped at a shadow, lost his troop of horse; that would be unintelligible. This is Metaphor. his (Dryden's new way of telling a story, and confounding the moral and the fable together.") After instancing from the Hind and Panther, he goes on thus: "What relation has the hind to our Saviour? or what notion have we of a panther's bible? If you say he means the church, how does the church feed on lawns, or range in the forest? Let it be always a church, or always a cloven-footed beast; for we cannot bear his shifting the scene every line."

A few words more upon allegory. Nothing gives greater pleasure than this figure, when the representative subject bears a strong analogy, in all its circumstances, to that which is represented; but the choice is seldom so lucky; the analogy being generally too faint and obscure, as to puzzle and not please. An allegory is still more difficult in painting than in poetry: the former can show no resemblance but what appears to the eye; the latter hath many other resources for showing the resemblance. And therefore, with respect to what the abbé du Bos terms myst allegorical compositions, these may do in poetry; because, in writing, the allegory can easily be distinguished from the historical part: no person, for example, mistakes Virgil's Fame for a real being. But such a mixture in a picture is intolerable; because in a picture the objects must appear all of the same kind, wholly real or wholly emblematical. For this reason, the history of Mary de Medicis, in the palace of Luxembourg, painted by Rubens, is unpleasant by a perpetual jumble of real and allegorical personages, which produce a discordance of parts, and an obscurity upon the whole: witness, in particular, the tablature representing the arrival of Mary de Medicis at Marseilles; where, together with the real personages, the Nereids and Tritons appear sounding their shells: such a mixture of fiction and reality in the same group is strangely absurd. The picture of Alexander and Roxana, described by Lucian, is gay and fanciful; but it suffers by the allegorical figures. It is not in the wit of man to invent an allegorical representation deviating farther from any shadow of resemblance, than one exhibited by Louis XIV. anno 1664; in which an enormous chariot, intended to represent that of the sun, is dragged along, surrounded with men and women, representing the four ages of the world, the celestial signs, the seasons, the hours, &c. a monstrous composition, and yet scarcely more absurd than Guido's tablature of Aurora.

In an allegory, as well as in a metaphor, terms ought to be chosen that properly and literally are applicable to the representative subject: nor ought any circumstance to be added that is not proper to the representative subject, however justly it may be applicable properly or figuratively to the principal. The following allegory is therefore faulty:

Ferus et Cupido, Semper ardentes acues fagittas Cote cruenta. Horat. lib. ii. ode 8.

For though blood may suggest the cruelty of love, it is an improper or immaterial circumstance in the representative subject: water, not blood, is proper for a whetstone.

We proceed to the next head, which is, to examine in what circumstances these figures are proper, in what improper. This inquiry is not altogether superseeded by what is said upon the same subject in the article COMPARISON; because, upon trial, it will be found, that a short metaphor or allegory may be proper, where a simile, drawn out to a greater length, and in its nature more solemn, would scarcely be relished.

And, in the first place, A metaphor, like a simile, is excluded from common conversation, and from the description of ordinary incidents. Secondly, In expressing any severe passion that totally occupies the mind, metaphor is unnatural.

The following example, of deep despair, beside the highly figurative style, has more the air of raving than of sense:

Calista. Is it the voice of thunder, or my father? Madness! confusion! let the storm come on, Let the tumultuous roar drive all upon me, Dash my devoted bark; ye furies, break it: 'Tis for my ruin that the tempest rises. When I am lost, sunk to the bottom low, Peace shall return, and all be calm again. Fair Penitent, act v.

The following metaphor is sweet and lively; but it suits not the fiery temper of Chamont, inflamed with passion: parables are not the language of wrath venting itself without restraint:

Chamont. You took her up a little tender flow'r, Just sprouted on a bank, which the next frost Had nipp'd; and with a careful loving hand, Transplanted her into your own fair garden, Where the sun always shines: there long the flourish'd, Grew sweet to senfe, and lovely to the eye; Till at the last a cruel spoiler came, Cropt this fair rose, and rifled all its sweetness, Then cast it like a loathsome weed away. Orphan, act iv.

The following speech, full of imagery, is not natural in grief and dejection of mind.

Gonfalone. O my son! from the blind dotage Of a father's fondness these ills arose. For thee I've been ambitious, base, and bloody: For thee I've plung'd into this sea of sin; Stemming the tide with only one weak hand, While t'other bore the crown (to wreathe thy brow), Whose weight has funk me ere I reach'd the shore. Mourning Bride, act v. sc. 6.

There is an enchanting picture of deep distress in Macbeth, where Macduff is represented lamenting his wife and children, inhumanly murdered by the tyrant. Stung to the heart with the news, he questions the messenger over and over: not that he doubted the fact, but that his heart revolted against so cruel a misfortune. After struggling some time with his grief, he turns from his wife and children to their savage butcher: and then gives vent to his resentment, but still with manliness and dignity:

O, I could play the woman with mine eyes, And braggart with my tongue. But, gentle Heav'n! Cut short all intermission; front to front Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself; Within Metaphor. Within my sword's length set him. If he 'scape, Then Heav'n forgive him too.

Metaphorical expression, indeed, may sometimes be used with grace where a regular simile would be intolerable; but there are situations so severe and dispiriting, as not to admit even the slightest metaphor. It requires great delicacy of taste to determine with firmness, whether the present case be of that nature: perhaps it is; yet who could with a single word of this admirable scene altered?

But metaphorical language is proper when a man struggles to bear with dignity or decency a misfortune however great; the struggle agitates and animates the mind:

Wolsey. Farewell, a long farewell to all my great nefs;

This is the state of man: to day he puts forth The tender leaves of hope; to-morrow blossoms, And bears his blushing honours thick upon him; The third day comes a frost, a killing frost, And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root, And then he falls as I do. Henry VIII. act iii. sc. 6.