In the similes mentioned, particularly in that cited from Milton.

Following the order above mentioned, the next effect of a comparison is to place an object in a strong point of view; which effect is remarkable in the following examples:

As when two scales are charg'd with doubtful loads, From side to side the trembling balance nods (While some laborious matron, just and poor, With nice exactness weighs her woolly store), Till pois'd aloft, the resting beam suspends Each equal weight, nor this nor that descends; So stood the war, till Hector's matchless might, With fates prevailing, turn'd the scale of fight. Fierce as a whirlwind up the wall he flies, And fires his host with loud repeated cries.

Again: O thou goodness! Thou divine nature! how thyself thou blazon'st In these two princely boys! they are as gentle As zephyrs blowing below the violet, Not wagging his sweet head; and yet as rough (Their royal blood incha'fed) as the rudest wind, That by the top doth take the mountain-pine, And make him stoop to the vale.

As words convey but a faint and obscure notion of great numbers, a poet, to give a lively notion of the object he describes, with regard to number, does well to compare it to what is familiar and commonly known. Thus Homer, in one passage, compares the Grecian army in point of number to a swarm of bees; and in another to that profusion of leaves and flowers which appear in the spring, or of insects in a summer's evening. Thus also Milton,

Of Amram's son in Egypt's evil day Wav'd round the coast, up call'd a pitchy cloud Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind, That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung Like night, and darken'd all the land of Nile; So numberless were those bad angels seen, Hovering on wing under the cope of hell, 'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires.

Comparisons like these have, by some writers, been condemned for the lowness of the images introduced, but without reason; for, in regard to number, they place the principal subject in a strong light.

The foregoing comparisons operate by resemblance; others have the same effect by contrast. Thus:

York. I am the last of noble Edward's sons, Of whom thy father, prince of Wales, was first. In war was never lion rapt more fierce, In peace was never gentler lamb more mild, Than was that young and princely gentleman. His face thou hast, for even so look'd he, Accomplish'd with the number of the hours; But not against the French, nor yet against the French, And not against his friends. His noble hand Did win what he did spend; and spent not that Which his triumphant father's hand had won. His hands were guilty of no kindred's blood, But bloody with the enemies of his kin. Oh, Richard, York is too far gone with grief, Or else he never would compare between.

Milton has a peculiar talent for embellishing the principal subject by associating it with others that are agreeable; which is the third end of a comparison. Similes of this kind have besides another effect; they diversify the narration by new images which are not strictly necessary to the comparison, and are short episodes, which, without drawing us from the principal subject, afford great delight by their beauty and variety. Thus, in Milton:

He scarce had ceas'd, when the superior friend Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield, Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round, Behind him cast: the broad circumference Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views At evening from the top of Feole, Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty glebe.

Next, with regard to comparisons which aggrandise or elevate, these affect us more than any other species of similes, as will be evident from the following instances:

As when a flame the winding valley fills, And runs on crackling shrubs between the hills, Then o'er the stubble up the mountain flies, Fires the high woods, and blazes to the skies, This way and that the spreading torrent roars; So sweeps the hero through the wasted shores. Around him wide, immense destruction pours, And earth is deluged with the sanguine show'r. Methinks King Richard and myself should meet With no less terror than the elements Of fire and water, when their thunder ring shock, At meeting, tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.

The last article mentioned is that of lessening or depressing a hated or disagreeable object; which is effectually done by comparing it to anything low or despicable. Thus Milton, in his description of the route of the rebel angels, happily expresses their terror and dismay in the following simile:

As a herd Of goats or timorous flock together throng'd, Drove them before him thunder-struck, purs'd With terrors and with furies to the bounds And crystal wall of heav'n, which op'ning wide, Roll'd inward, and a spacious gap disclos'd Into the wasteful deep; the monstrous sight Struck them with horror backward, but far worse Urg'd them behind; headlong themselves they threw Down from the verge of heav'n.

The different purposes of comparison, and the various impressions it makes on the mind, may easily be understood from these familiar examples. But it is more difficult to lay down rules concerning the propriety or impropriety of comparisons; in what circumstances they may be introduced, and in what circumstances they are out of place. It is evident that a comparison is not proper upon every occasion: a man in his cool and sedate moments is not disposed to poetical flights, nor to sacrifice truth and reality to the delusive phantasies of the imagination; far less is he so disposed when oppressed with care, or interested in some important transaction which occupies his whole mind. On the other hand, it is observed, that a person, when elevated or animated by any passion, is disposed to elevate or animate all his subjects; he avoids familiar names, exalts objects by circumlocution and metaphor, and gives even life and voluntary action to inanimate beings. In this ardour of mind, the highest poetical flights are indulged in, and the boldest similes and metaphors relished. But without soaring so high, the mind is frequently in a tone to relish chaste and moderate ornament; such as comparisons which place the principal object in a strong point of view, or embellish and diversify the narration. In general, when by any animating passion, whether pleasant or painful, an impulse is given to the imagination, we are in that condition which predisposes to every sort of figurative expression, and in particular to comparisons. This is in a great measure evident from the comparisons already mentioned, and shall be further illustrated by other instances. Love, for example, in its infancy, coursing the imagination, prompts the heart to display itself in figurative language, and in similes.

Thus:

Troilus. Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love, What Cressida is, what Pandar, and what we? Her bed is India—there she lies a pearl: Between our Ilion and where she resides, Let it be call'd the wild and wand'ring flood; Ourself the merchant, and this silling Pandar Our doubtful hope, our convey, and our bark.

Again:

Come, gentle night; come, loving black-brow'd night! Give me my Romeo; and when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heav'n so fine That all the world shall be in love with night, And pay no worship to the garish sun.

But it will better illustrate the present head, if we give examples where comparisons are improperly introduced. Similes are not the language of a man in his ordinary state of mind, dispatching his daily and usual work; for which reason the following speech of a gardener to his servant is extremely improper:

Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricots, Which, like unruly children, make their sire Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight; Give some sustentance to the bending twigs. Go thou, and, like an executioner, Cut off the heads of two fast growing sprays, That look too lofty in our commonwealth: All must be even in our government.

Rooted grief, deep anguish, terror, remorse, despair, and all the severe dispiriting passions, are declared enemies, perhaps not to figurative language in general, but undoubtedly, to the pomp and solemnity of comparison. Upon this account the simile pronounced by young Rutland, under terror of death from an inveterate enemy, and praying for mercy, is unnatural:

So looks the pent-up lion o'er the wretch That trembles under his devouring paws; And so he walks insulting o'er thy prey, And so he comes to rend his limbs asunder. Ah, gentle Clifford, kill me with thy sword, And not with such a cruel threat'ning look.

A man exhausted and dispirited after losing a battle is not disposed to heighten or illustrate his discourse by similes.

York. With this we charg'd again; but out! alas, We boil'd again; as I have seen a swan With boatless labour swims against the tide, And spend her strength with over-matching waves. Ah! bark, the fatal followers do pursue, And I am faint and cannot fly their fury. The sands are number'd that make up my life: Here must I stay, and here my life must end.

Similes thus unseasonably introduced are finely ridiculed in the Rehearsal.

Bayes. Now here she must make a simile.

Smith. Where's the necessity of that, Mr Bayes?

Bayes. Because she's surprised; that's a general rule. You must ever make a simile when you are surprised: 'tis a new way of writing.

A comparison is not always faultless, even where it is properly introduced; for, like other human productions, it may fall short of its end. Of this defect instances are not rare even among good writers; and to complete the present subject, it will be necessary to make some observations upon such faulty comparisons. Nothing can be more erroneous than to institute a comparison too faintly; a distant resemblance or contrast fatigues the mind with its obscurity, instead of amusing it, and tends not to fulfil any one end of a comparison. The following similes seem to labour under this defect:

K. Rich. Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown. Here on this side, my hand; on that side, thine. Now is this golden crown like a deep well, That owns two buckets, filling one another;

The emptier ever dancing in the air, The other down, unseen, and full of water; That bucket down, and full of tears, am I, Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.

K. John. Oh! cousin, thou art come to set mine eye; The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burnt: And all the shrouds wherewith my life should sail, Are turned to one thread, one little hair: My heart hath one poor string to stay it by, Which holds but till thy news be uttered.

York. My uncles both are slain in rescuing me: And all my followers to the eager foe Turn back, and fly like ships before the wind, Or lambs pursued by hunger-starved wolves.

The last of these two similes is good; the first, because of the faintness of the resemblance, produces no effect, and crowds the narration with an useless image.

In an epic poem, or in any elevated subject, a writer ought to avoid raising a simile upon a low image, which never fails to lower the principal subject. In general, it is a rule, that a grand object ought never to be resembled to one that is diminutive, however delicate the resemblance may be; for it is the peculiar character of a grand object to fix the attention and swell the mind; in which state, it is disagreeable to contract the mind to a minute object, however elegant. The comparing an object to one that is greater, has, on the contrary, a good effect, by raising or exalting the mind; for one passes with satisfaction from a small to a great object, but cannot be drawn down, without reluctance, from great to small.

Hence the following similes are faulty:

Meanwhile the troops beneath Patroclus' care Invade the Trojans, and commence the war. As wasps, provok'd by children in their play, Pour from their mansions by the broad highway, In swarms the guiltless traveller engage, With all their stings, and call forth all their rage; All rise in arms, and with a groaning cry Assert their waxen domes and hazarded progeny; Thus from their tents the fervent legion swarms, So loud their clamours, and so keen their arms.

So burns the vengeful hornet (soul all o'er), Repulsed in vain, and thirsty still of gore; (ibold sea of air and heat) on angry wings Unstopp'd retire, and turns, attacks, and stings. Fired with like anger, fierce Atreides flew, And sent his soul with every lance he threw.

An error opposite to the former is the introducing of a resembling image, so elevated or great as to bear no proportion to the principal subject. The remarkable disparity of the things compared being the most striking circumstance, seizes the mind, and never fails to depress the principal subject by contrast, instead of raising it by resemblance. And if the disparity be exceedingly great, the simile assumes an air of burlesque; nothing being more ridiculous than to force an object out of its proper rank in nature, by assimilating it to one greatly superior or greatly inferior. This will be evident from the following comparison:

Loud as a bull makes hill and valley ring, So roar'd the lock, when it released the spring.

Such a simile regarding the simplest of all acts, that of opening a lock, is absurd from its inaptitude, and burlesque from its extravagant disproportion.