Did not Offian hear a voice? or is it the found of days that are no more? Often, like the evening fun, comes the memory of former times on my foul.

His countenance is fettled from war; and is calm as the evening-beam, that from the cloud of the west looks on Cona's filent vale.

Sorrow, like a cloud on the fun, fhades the foul of Cleffammor.

The mufic was like the memory of joys that are past, pleafant and mournful to the foul.

Pleasant are the words of the fong, faid Cuchullin, and lovely are the tales of other times. They are like the calm dew of the morning on the hill of roes, when the fun is faint on its fide, and the lake is fettled and blue in the vale.

These quotations are from the poems of Offian, who abounds with comparisons of this delicate kind, and appears fingularly happy in them.*

I proceed to illuftrate by particular inftances the different means by which comparisons, whether of the one fort or the other, can afford pleasure; and, in the order above established, I begin with fuch instances as are agreeable, by fuggesting fome unusual resemblance or contraft:

Sweet are the ufes of Adverfity,

Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in her head.

As you like it, at 2. fc. I.

Gardener. Bolingbroke hath seized the wasteful King,
What pity is't that he had not fo trimm'd
And drefs'd his land, as we this garden dress,

And wound the bark, the flin of our fruit-trees;
Left, being over proud with fap and blood,
With too much riches it contound itself.

Had

The nature and merit of Offian's comparifons is fully illuftrated, in a differtation on the poems of that Author, by Dr. Blair, profeffor of rhetoric in the college of Edinburgh; a delicious morfel of criticifm,"

Had he done fo to great and growing men,
They might have liv'd to bear, and he to taste
Their fruits of duty. All fuperfluous branches
We lop away, that bearing boughs may live :
Had he done fo, himself had borne the crown,
Which waste and idle hours have quite thrown down.
Richard II. act 3. Sc. 7.

See how the Morning opes her golden gates,
And takes her tarewell of the glorious Sun;
How well refembles it the prime of youth,
Trimm'd like a younker prancing to his love!

Second part, Henry VI. act 2. fc. 1.

Brutus. O Caffus you are yoked with a lamb,
That carries anger as the flint bears fire:
Who, much enforced, thows a hasty spark,
And ftraight is cold again.

Julius Cæfar, at 4. fc. 3•

Thus they their doubtful confultations dark
Ended, rejoicing in their matchlefs chief:
As when from mountain-tops, the dufky clouds
Afcending, while the North-wind fleeps, o'erfpread
Heav'n's cheerful face, the low'ring element
Scowls o'er the darken'd landfcape, fnow and fhow'r;
If chance the radiant fun with farewell fweet
Extends his ev'ning-beam, the fields revive,
The birds their notes renew, and bleating herds
Atteft their joy, that hill and valley rings.

Paradife Loft, b. 2.

As the bright stars, and milky way,
Show'd by the night are hid by day:
So we in that accomplish'd mind,
Help'd by the night new graces find,
Which by the fplendor of her view,
Dazzled before, we never knew.

Waller.

The laft exertion of courage compared to the blaze of a lamp before extinguifhing, Taffo Gierufalem, canto 19. ft. 22.

None

None of the foregoing fimiles, as they appear to me, tend to illustrate the principal fubject: and therefore the pleasure they afford must arife from fuggeft. ing resemblances that are not obvious: I mean the chief pleasure; for undoubtedly a beautiful fubject introduced to form the fimile affords a feparate pleafure,, which is felt in the fimiles mentioned, particularly in that cited from Milton.

The next effect of a comparifon in the order mentioned, is to place an object in a ftrong point of view; which effect is remarkable in the following fimiles :

As when two scales are charg'd with doubtful loads,
From fide to fide the trembling balance nods,
(While fome laborious matron, juft and poor,
With nice exactnefs weighs her woolly ftore,)
Till pois'd aloft, the refting beam fufpends
Each equal weight; nor this nor that defcends :
So ftood the war, till Hector's matchlefs might,
With fates prevailing, turn'd the scale of fight.
Fierce as a whirlwind up the wall he flies,
And fires his hoft with loud repeated cries,

Iliad, b. xii. 521.

Ut flos in feptis fecretis nafcitur hortis,
Ignotus pecori, nullo contufus aratro,
Quem mulcent auræ, firmat fol, educat imber,
Multi illum pueri, multæ cupiere puellæ ;
Idem, cum tenui carptus defloruit ungui,
Nulli illum pueri, nullæ cupiêre puellæ :
Sic virgo, dum intacta manet, dum cara fuis; fed
Cum caftum amifit, polluto corpore, florem,
Nec pueris jucunda manet, nec cara puellis.

Catullus.

The

The imitation of this beautiful fimile by Ariofto, canto 1. ft. 42. falls fhort of the original. It is alfo in part imitated by Pope.*

Lucetta. I do not feck to quench your love's hot fire, But quality the fire's extreme rage,

Left it thould burn above the bounds of reafon.

Julia. The more thou damm'ft it up, the more it

burns:

The current, that with gentle murmur glides,
Thou know'ft, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage;
But when his fair courfe is not hindered,

He makes fweet mufic with th' enamel'd ftones,
Giving a gentle kifs to every fedge

He overtaketh in his pilgrimage:

And fo by many winding nooks he strays
With willing fport, to the wild ocean.

Then let me go, and hinder not my course :
I'll be as patient as a gentle ftream,
And make a paftime of each weary ftep,
Till the laft ftep have brought me to my love;
And there I'll reft, as, after much turmoil,
A bleffed foul doth in Elyfium.

Two Gentlemen of Verona, act 2. fc. 10.

She never told her love;

But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on her damafk cheek: fhe pin'd in thought;
And with a green and yellow melancholy,

She fat like Patience on a monument,

Smiling at Grief.

Twelfth Night, act 2. fc. 6.

York. Then, as I faid, the Duke, great Bolingbroke, Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed,

Which his afpiring rider feem'd to know,

With flow but ftately pace, kept on his courfe:

While all tongues cry'd, God fave thee, Bolingbroke.

* Dunciad, b. 4. 1. 405.

Duchefs.

Duchefs. Alas! poor Richard, where rides he the

while!

York. As in a theatre, the eyes of men,
After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on him that enters next,
Thinking his prattle to be tedious:

Even fo, or with much more contempt men's eyes
Did fcowl on Richard; no man cry'd, God fave him!
No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home;
But duft was thrown upon his facred head :
Which with fuch gentle forrow he fhook off,
His face ftill combating with tears and fmiles,
The badges of his grief and patience;

That had not God, for fome ftrong purpofe, fteel'd
The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,
And barbarifm itfelf have pitied him.

Richard II. act 5. fc. 3.

Northumberland. How doth my fon and brother? Thou trembleft, and the whiteness in thy cheek Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand, Even fuch a man, fo taint, fo fpiritlefs, So dull, fo dead in look, fo wo-be-gone, Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,

And would have told him, half his Troy was burn'd; But Priam found the fire, ere he his tongue :

And I my Piercy's death, ere thou report'it it.
Second part, Henry IV. act 1. fc. 3.

Why, then I do but dream on fov'reignty,
Like one that ftands upon a promontory,
And fpies a far-off fhore where he would tread,.
Withing his foot were equal with his eye,
And chides the fea that funders him from thence,
Saying, he'll lave it dry to have his way:
So do I wish, the crown being fo far off,
And fo I chide the means that keep me from it,
And fo (1 fay) I'll cut the caufes off,

Flatt'ring my mind with things impoffible.

Third part, Henry VI. act 3. Sc. 3.

Out, out brief candle!

Life's but a walking fhadow; a poor player,

That