To thee, the world its prefent Homage pays, Pope's imitation of Horace, b. 2. Oui, fa pudeur n'eft que franche grimace, Molliere, L'Etourdi, act 3. fc. 2.Et fon feu depourvû de fenfe et de lecture, S'éteint a chaque pas, faute de nourriture. Boileau, L'art poetique, chant. 3. 1. 319 Dryden, in his dedication to his translation of Juvenal, fays, When thus, as I may fay, before the ufe of the loadstone, or knowledge of the compafs, I was failing in a vaft ocean, without other help than the pole-ftar of the ancients, and the rules of the French ftage among the moderns, &c. There is a time when factions, by the vehemence of their own fermentation, stun and difable one another.. Bolingbroke. This fault of jumbling the figure and plain expreffion into one confused mafs, is not lefs common in allegory than in metaphor. Take the following example.. Heu quoties fidem, Mutatofque Deos flebit et afpera Emirabitur infolens, Qui nunc te fruitur credulus aureâ : Qui femper vacuam, femper amabilem Sperat, nefcius auræ Fallacis. Horat. Carm. I. 1. ode 5. Lord Halifax, fpeaking of the antient fabulifts: They (fays he) wrote in figns and spoke in parables: "all their fables carry a double meaning: the story is. "one and entire; the characters the fame through out; not broken or changed, and always con"formable to the nature of the creature they in"troduce. They never tell you, that the dog "which fnapp'd at a fhadow, loft his troop. of "horfe; that would be unintelligible. This is his (Dryden's) new way of telling a ftory, and con"founding the moral and the fable together." After inftancing from the hind and panther, he goes. on thus: "What relation hath the hind to our "Saviour? or what notion have we of a panther's "bible? If you fay he means the church, how "does the church feed on lawns, or range in the "forreft? Let it be always a church or always. (( a cloven-footed beaft, for we cannot bear his "fhifting the fcene every line." A few words more upon allegcry. Nothing gives greater pleasure than this figure, when the representative subject bears a strong analogy, in all its circumstances, to that which is reprefented. But the cho ce is feldom fo lucky; the refemblance of the reprefentative fubject to the principal, being generally fo faint and obfcure, as to puzzle and not. please. An allegory is ftill more difficult in paint ing than in poetry. The former can fhow no refemblance but what appears to the eye: the latter hath many other refourfes for fhowing the refemblance. With respect to what the abbé du Bos✶ terms mixt allegorical compofitions, these may do in poetry, becaufe in writing the allegory can eafily be diftinguifhed from the hiftorical part: no perfon mistakes Virgil's Fame for a real being. But fuch a mixture in a picture is intolerable; be caufe *Reflections fur la Poefie, &c. vol. 1. fect. 24 cause in a picture the objects must appear all of the fame kind, wholly real or wholly emblematical. The hiftory of Mary de Medicis in the palace of Luxenbourg, painted by Rubens, is in a vicious taste, by a perpetual jumble of real and allegorical perfonages, which produce a difcordance of parts and an obfcurity upon the whole: witness in particular, the tablature representing the arrival of Mary de Medicis at Marfeilles: mixt with the real perfonages, the Nereids and Tritons appear founding their fhells. Such a mixture of fiction and reality in the fame group, is ftrangely abfurd. The picture of Alexander and Roxana, described. by Lucian, is gay and fanciful:. but it fuffers by the allegorical figures. It is not in the wit of man to invent an allegorical reprefentation deviating farther from any appearance of refemblance, than one exhibited by Lewis XIV. anno 1664; in which an overgrown chariot, intended to reprefent that of the fun, is dragg'd along, furrounded with men and women, reprefenting the four ages of the world, the celeftial figns, the feafons, the hours, &c. a monftrous compofition; and yet scarce more abfurd than Guido's tablature of Au rora. In an allegory, as well as in a metaphor, terimsought to be chofen that properly and literally are applicable to the representative fubject. Nor ought any circumstance to be added, that is not proper to the reprefentative subject, however jftly it may be applicable figuratively to the principal. Upon this account the following allegory is faulty. Ferus et Cupido, Semper ardentes acuens fagittas Cote cruenta. Horat. 1. 2. ode. 8. For K 4 For though blood may fuggeft 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 circumftances these figures are proper, in what improper. This inquiry is not altogether fuperfeded by what is faid upon the same subject in the chapter of comparisons; because, upon trial, it will be found, that a fhort metaphor or allegory may be proper, where a fimile, drawn out to a greater length, and in its nature more folemn, would fcarce be relifhed. The difference however is not confiderable; and in moft inftances the fame rules are applicable to both. And, in the firft place, a metaphor, as well as a fimile, are excluded from common converfation, and from the description of ordinary incidents. In the next place, in any fevere paffion which totally occupies the mind, metaphor is unnatural. For that reason, we must condemn the following fpeech of Macbeth. Methought, I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more! Act 2. fc. 3. The next example, of deep defpair, befide the highly figuratively style; hath more the air of raving than of fenfe: Califa. Is it the voice of thunder or my father? Madnefs! Confufion! let the ftorm come on, 'Tis for my ruin that the tempeft rises. When I am loft, funk to the bottom low, Peace fhall return, and all be calm again. Fair Penitent, act 4. The metaphor I next introduce, is sweet and lively, but it fuits not the fiery temper of Chamont, inflamed with paffion. Parables are not the language of wrath venting itself without restraint: Chamont. You took her up a little tender flower, Grew sweet to fenfe and lovely to the eye, Cropt this fair rose, and rifled all its sweetness, Orphan, Act 4 The following speech, full of imagery, is not natural in grief and dejection of mind. Gonfalez. O my fon! from the blind dotage For thee I've been ambitious, bafe and bloody: Mourning Bride, Act 5. fc. 6. The finest picture that ever was drawn of deep diftrefs, is in Macbeth *, where Macduff is reprefented lamenting his wife and children, inhumanly murdered by the tyrant. Struck with the news, he questions the messenger over and over; not that * A&t 4, fc. 6. |