priety 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 a tragic character overwhelmed with grief, distracted by contending cares, or agonizing 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 ṣwan, 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 Scrip ture. Homer has been blamed for the bad choice of his similes on some particular occasions. He compares Ajax to an ass in the Illiad, 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 beefcollop; 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: 66 -medio dux agmine Turnus Vertitur arma tenens, et toto vertice suprà est, "But Turnus, chief amidst the warrior train, In armour towers the tallest on the plain. A mighty mass devolves in silent pride: Thus Nilus pours from his prolific urn, When from the fields o'erflow'd his vagrant streams return. These, no doubt, are majestic images; but they bear no sort of resemblance to a 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 Molli, Plance, mero. "As Notus often, when the welkin lowers, Sweeps off the clouds, nor teems perpetual showers, In mellow wine dissolve the cares of life."-DUNKIN. 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 inaccurary, 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 mærens Philomela sub umbrâ "So Philomela, from th'umbrageous wood, In strains melodious mourns her tender brood, Snatch'd from the nest by some rude ploughman's hand, On some lone bough the warbler takes her stand: And hill and dale resound the plaintive song." 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 ̓ ἀεροειδὲς ἀνὴρ ἴδεν ὀφθαλμοῖσιν Ἤμενος ἐν σκοπιῃ, λεύσσων ἐπὶ οἴνοπα πόντον, "For as a watchman from some rock on high O'er the wide main extends his boundless eye; 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. Homer's best similes have been copied by Virgil, and almost every succeeding poet, howsoever they may have varied in the manner of expression. In the third book of the Iliad, Menelaus seeing Paris, is compared to a hungry lion espying a hind or goat : Ὥσε λέων ἐχάρη μεγάλῳ ἐπὶ σώματι κύρσας "So joys the lion, if a branching deer Or mountain goat his bulky prize appear; In vain the youths oppose, the mastiffs bay, The lordly savage rends the panting prey. Thus fond of vengeance, with a furious bound In clanging arms he leaps upon the ground." The Mantuan bard, in the tenth book of the Æneid, applies the same simile to Mezentius, when he beholds Acron in the battle. Impastus stabulâ altâ leo ceu sæpe peragrans (Suadet enim vesana fames), si fortè fugacem Conspexit capream, aut surgentem in cornua cervum ; "Then as a hungry lion, who beholds A gamesome goat who frisks about the folds, DRYDEN. 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 |