too far pursued. If the resemblance on which the Figure is founded, be long dwelt upon, and carried into all its minute circumstances, we make an allegory instead of a Metaphor; we tire the reader, who soon becomes weary of this play of fancy; and we render our discourse obscure. This is called, straining a Metaphor. Cowley deals in this to excess; and to this error is owing, in a great measure, that intricacy and harshness, in his figurative Language, which I before remarked. Lord Shaftesbury is sometimes guilty of pursuing his Metaphors too far. Fond, to a high degree, of every decoration of style, when once he had hit upon a Figure that pleased him, he was extremely loath to part with it. Thus, in his Advice to an Author, having taken up soliloquy, or meditation, under the Metaphor of a proper method of evacuation for an author, he pursues this Metaphor through several pages, under all the forms of discharging crudities, throwing off "froth and scum, bodily operation, taking physic, "curing indigestion, giving vent to choler, bile, "flatulencies, and tumours;" till, at last, the idea becomes nauseous. Dr. Young also often trespasses in the same way. The merit, however, of this writer in figurative Language is great, and deserves to be remarked. No writer, ancient or modern, had a stronger imagination than Dr. Young, or one more fertile in Figures of every kind. His Metaphors are often new, and often natural and beautiful. But his imagination was strong and rich, rather than delicate and correct. Hence, in his Night Thoughts, there prevails an obscurity, and a hardness in his style. The Metaphors are frequently too bold, and frequently too far pursued; the reader is dazzled rather

than enlightened; and kept constantly on the stretch to keep pace with the author. We may observe, for instance, how the following Metaphor is spun out:

Thy thoughts are vagabond; all outward-bound,

Midst sands and rocks, and storms, to cruise for pleasure;
If gain'd, dear bought; and better miss'd than gain'd.
Fancy and sense, from an infected shore,

Thy cargo brings; and pestilence the prize;
Then such the thirst, insatiable thirst,

By fond indulgence but inflam'd the more,
Fancy still cruises, when poor sense is tired.
Speaking of old age, he says it should

Walk thoughtful on the silent solemn shore
Of that vast ocean, it must sail so soon:
And put good works on board; and wait the wind
That shortly blows us into worlds unknown.

The two first lines are uncommonly beautiful; "walk thoughtful on the silent," &c. but when he continues the Metaphor, "to putting good works on "board, and waiting the wind," it plainly becomes strained, and sinks in dignity. Of all the English authors, I know none so happy in his Metaphors as Mr. Addison. His imagination was neither so rich nor so strong as Dr. Young's; but far more chaste and delicate. Perspicuity, natural grace, and ease, always distinguish his Figures. They are neither harsh nor strained; they never appear to have been studied or sought after; but seem to rise of their own accord from the subject, and constantly embellish it.

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I have now treated fully of the Metaphor, and the rules that should govern it; a part of style so important, that it required particular illustration. have only to add a few words concerning Allegory. An Allegory may be regarded as a continued Me

taphor; as it is the representation of some one thing by another that resembles it; and that is made to stand for it. Thus, in Prior's Henry and Emma, Emma in the following allegorical manner describes her constancy to Henry:

Did I but purpose to embark with thee

On the smooth surface of a summer's sea,
While gentle zephyrs play with prosp'rous gales,
And fortune's favour fills the swelling sails,

But would forsake the ship, and make the shore,
When the winds whistle, and the tempests roar?

We take also from the Scriptures a very fine may example of an Allegory, in the 80th Psalm; where the people of Israel are represented under the image of a vine, and the Figure is supported throughout with great correctness and beauty: "Thou hast "brought a vine out of Egypt, thou hast cast out "the heathen, and planted it. Thou preparedst "room before it, and didst cause it to take deep "root, and it filled the land. The hills were covered "with the shadow of it; and the boughs thereof "were like the goodly cedars. She sent out her

boughs into the sea, and her branches into the "river. Why hast thou broken down her hedges, so "that all they which pass by the way do pluck her? "The boar out of the wood doth waste it; and the "wild beast of the field doth devour it. Return, we "beseech thee, O God of Hosts; look down from

Heaven, and behold, and visit this vine!" Here there is no circumstance (except perhaps one phrase at the beginning, "thou hast cast out the heathen") that does not strictly agree to a vine, whilst at the same time the whole quadrates happily with the Jewish state represented by this Figure. This is the first and principal requisite in the conduct of an

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Allegory, that the figurative and the literal meaning be not mixed inconsistently together. For instance, instead of describing the vine, as wasted by the boar from the wood and devoured by the wild beast of the field, had the Psalmist said, it was afflicted by heathens, or overcome by enemies (which is the real meaning), this would have ruined the Allegory, and produced the same confusion, of which I gave examples in Metaphors, when the figurative and literal sense are mixed and jumbled together. Indeed, the same rules that were given for Metaphors, may also be applied to Allegories, on account of the affinity they bear to each other. The only material difference between them, besides the one being short, and the other being prolonged, is, that a Metaphor always explains itself by the words that are connected with it in their proper and natural meaning; as when I say, "Achilles was a Lion:" an "able Minister is "the Pillar of the state; my Lion and my Pillar are sufficiently interpreted by the mention of Achilles and the Minister, which I join to them: but an Allegory is, or may be, allowed to stand more disconnected with the literal meaning; the interpretation not so directly pointed out, but left to our own reflection.

Allegories were a favourite method of delivering instructions in ancient times; for what we call Fables or Parables are no other than Allegories; where, by words and actions attributed to beasts or inanimate objects, the dispositions of men are figured; and what we call the moral, is the unfigured sense or meaning of the Allegory. An Ænigma or Riddle is also a species of Allegory; one thing represented or imagined by another, but purposely wrapt up under so many circumstances, as to be rendered obscure.

Where a riddle is not intended, it is always a fault in Allegory to be too dark. The meaning should be easily seen through the figure employed to shadow it. However, the proper mixture of light and shade in such compositions, the exact adjustment of all the figurative circumstances with the literal sense, so as neither to lay the meaning too bare and open, nor to cover and wrap it up too much, has ever been found an affair of great nicety; and there are few species of composition in which it is more difficult to write so as to please and command attention, than in Allegories. In some of the visions of the Spectator, we have examples of Allegories very happily executed.

LECTURE XVI.

HYPERBOLE-PERSONIFICATION-APOSTROPHE..

THE next Figure concerning which I am to treat is called Hyperbole, or Exaggeration. It consists in magnifying an object beyond its natural bounds. It may be considered sometimes as a Trope, and sometimes as a Figure of thought: and here indeed the distinction between these two classes begins not to be clear, nor is it of any importance that we should have recourse to metaphysical subtilties, in order to keep them distinct. Whether we call it Trope or Figure,