Or like the snow falls in the river,

A moment white-then dark forever;
Or like the rainbow's lovely form,
Evanishing amid the storm."

The distinguished Greek critic, Longinus, who writes so sublimely of the sublime, couches his opinion of the "Odyssey" in two noble similitudes:

"In the 'Odyssey' Homer may be likened to the setting sun, whose grandeur still remains, though his beams have lost their meridian heat."

After a little he adds

"Like the ocean, whose shores when deserted by the tide mark out the extent to which it sometimes flows, so Homer's genius, when ebbing into the fables of the 'Odyssey,' plainly discovers how vast it once must have been."

What an unexpected stroke of originality we meet with in Jean Paul Richter:

"The smallest children are nearest to God, as the smallest planets are nearest the sun."

Mrs. Radcliffe, who was never out of England, in Chapter XVI. of her famous "Mysteries of Udolfo," thus describes, with an accuracy that has been wondered at, the appearance of Venice:

"Its terraces, crowded with airy yet majestic fabrics, touched as they now were with the splendors of the setting sun, appeared as if they had been called up from the ocean by the wand of an enchanter."

It is an interesting form of this figure, too, when, after the points of resemblance, the point or points of dissimilitude are stated, as thus in Anthony Trollope's "Three Clerks," Chapter XIII.; excellent, as are all his novels:

"New friends, like one's best coat and polished patent-leather boots, are only intended for holiday wear. At other times they

are neither serviceable nor comfortable; they do not answer the required purposes, and are ill adapted to give us the ease we seek. A new coat, however, has this advantage, that in time it will become old and comfortable; so much can by no means be predicated with certainty of a new friend."

Let the student of style reflect how often such stating of a dissimile may be impressive. Let us also recommend strongly Anthony Trollope's female characters; and his English style, admirably accurate.

We have been eagerly lauding Beecher's homely similes; no more perfect instance can be found of the effective use of such than in the following by Miss Charlotte Young, on "Evening:"

"How like a tender mother,

With loving thoughts beguiled,
Fond Nature seems to lull to rest
Each faint and weary child!
Drawing the curtain tenderly,
Affectionate and mild.

"Hark to the gentle lullaby

That through the trees is creeping-
Those sleepy trees that nod their heads
Ere the moon as yet comes peeping,
Like a tender nurse, to see if all
Her little ones are sleeping."

This other comparison accept of, from a work still celebrated in the history of English literature, the "Euphues" of John Lyly. If he had always written as follows, his work would not have become a synonym for affectation in style:

"I have read of Themistocles, which, having offended Philip, the King of Macedonia, and could no way appease his anger, meeting his young son, Alexander, took him in his arms, and met Philip in the face. Philip, seeing the smiling countenance of the child, was well pleased with Themistocles. Even so, if through thy manifold sins and heinous offenses thou provoke

the heavy displeasure of thy God, inasmuch as thou shalt tremble for horror, take his only-begotten and well-beloved Son, Jesus, in thine arms, and then He neither can nor will be angry with thee."

We betake us for another bunch of flowers to James Joseph Callanan, on the Loch of Gougaune Barra, County Cork, Ireland:

"There grows the wild ash, and a time-stricken willow
Looks chidingly down on the mirth of the billow;
As like some gay child, that sad monitor scorning,
It lightly laughs back to the laugh of the morning;
And the waters rush down 'mid the thunder's deep rattle,
Like clans from their hills at the voice of the battle."

W. W. Fosdick paints thus a scene in a maize field— very American; be sure not to leave out of your view the haze on the hills:

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A thin veil hangs over the landscape and flood,
And the hills are all mellow'd in haze;
While Fall, creeping on like a monk in his hood,

Plucks the thick rustling wealth of the maize."

Two remarks in conclusion. First, the distinction between the form and the essence of the poetic-its body and its soul. A long controversy has prevailed as to what constitutes poetry; from the vain endeavor to express, by one word, the internal spirit and the external form. This can not be done; let there be two words carefully kept apart. Ossian has the soul of poetry without the rhyme and rhythm; Sternhold and Hopkins, in their wretched versions of the Psalms, have the form without the imagination, the fancy, or the inspired glow. In this volume we purposely designate the inward as Poesy-the outward as Poetry; and the obscurity at once is gone. For a subject will be kept in perpetual obscurity and confusion by the lack of a sufficiently rich and precise nomenclature. One fit word can dissipate a

thousand mists. Truth is retarded piteously by men's not having the right word, or not knowing how aright to use the words they have.

Finally, we have hinted at many of the deeper sources of simile; and of all those figures that rest on resemblance. We have not referred to the deepest source of all. We state it now very briefly. If one writer pen "Paradise Lost" and "Paradise Regained," many resemblances it will be possible to detect between the two. But outward nature and mental nature are from the same author-the One great Thinker and Poet, who hath developed his divine ideas on sky and sea; on conscience, heart, and intellect; a basis, God-given, whereon to rest those similitudes on which rhetoric rests; and which render rhetoric vivid, the servant of truth, and accordant with the Deity. Low, shallow views have degraded our subject; yet, manifestly, it reaches up to God. Ponder this for life. Atheism, into whatsoever literary field it intrudes, brings with it the narrow, shallow, and degrading. No theme can reach its highest, or attain its apotheosis, till it reaches the feet of God. We laugh therefore at the idea that our atheists can sneer Religion from her throne. They may as easily sneer away the dews, the mountains, or the dawn.

CHAPTER VIII.

FIGURES OF RHETORIC.

PART THIRD.

The Metaphor.

XXXVI. THE Metaphor next introduces itself. Let us take you to hear old Father Taylor preach. He is trying to give his congregation an idea of redemption. He described a terrific storm at sea, rising to greater and wilder fury; amid the weltering waves a vessel is seen laboring in distress, and driving on a lee shore; the masts bend, break, go overboard; the sails are rent; the helm unshipped; the vessel begins to fill; she sinks deeper, deeper:

"But what do I see yonder! Through the mist I see it. That flash of lightning has shown it to me. A life-boat!-a life-boat! Christ is that life-boat!"

"Christ is like that life-boat" is a simile. "Christ is that life-boat" is far stronger; an expression not of resemblance, but of identity; it is a metaphor; shorter, stronger, a flash of thought. That quick flash is delightful: condensation of mental power; bolt of the Jove-like mind. Or listen to Ebenezer Elliott; in essence, simile; in utterance and feeling, more:

"O lift the workman's heart and mind

Above low, sensual sin!

Give him a home, the home of taste;
Outbid the house of gin.