Pr. Henry. I'll make it greater, ere I part from thee, And all the budding honours on thy creft I'll crop to make a garland for my head. First part, Henry IV. a&t 5. fc. 9. Figuring a man who hath acquired great reputation and honour to be a tree full of fruit;

-Oh, boys, this ftory

The world may read in me: my body's mark'd
With Roman words; and my report was once
First with the best of note. Cymbeline lov'd me;
And when a foldier was the theme, my name
Was not far off: then was I as a tree,
Whose boughs did bend with fruit. But in one night,
A ftorm or robbery call it what you will,
Shook down my mellow hangings, nay my leaves;
And left me bare to weather.

Cymbeline, act 3. fc. 3.

Bleft be thy foul, thou king of fhells, faid Swaran of the dark-brown fhield. In peace thou art the gale of fpring; in war, the mountain-ftorm. Take now my hand in friendfhip, thou noble king of Morven.

Fingal.

Thou dwelleft in the foul of Malvina, fon of mighty Offian. My fighs arife with the beam of the east: my tears defcend with the drops of night. I was a lovely tree in thy prefence, Ofcar, with all my branches round me : but thy death came like a blaft from the defart, and laid my green head low; the fpring returned with its fhowers, but no leaf of mine arofe.

Fingal.

I am aware that the term metaphor has been used in a more extenfive fenfe than I give it; but I thought it of confequence, in a difquifition of fome intricacy, to confine the term to its proper fenfe, and to separate from it things that are diftinguifhed by different names. An allegory differs from a metaphor; and

what

what I would choofe to call a figure of speech, differs from both. I proceed to explain thefe differences. A metaphor is defined above to be an act of the imagination, figuring one thing to be another. An allegory requires no fuch operation, nor is one thing figured to be another: it confifts in choofing a fabject having properties or circumstances refembling thofe of the principal fubject; and the former is decribed in fuch a manner as to reprefent the latter; the fubject thus reprefented is kept out of view: we are left to difcover it by reflection; and we are pleafed with the difcovery, because it is our own work. Quintilian gives the following inftance of an Allegory,

O navis, referent in mare te novi
Fluctus. O quid agis fortiter occupa portum.
Horat. lib. 1. ode 14.

and explains it elegantly in the following words: "Totufque ille Horatii locus, quo navim pro republica, fluctuum tempeftates pro bellis civilibus, portum pro pace atque concordia, dicit."

A finer or more correct allegory is not to be found than the following, in which a vineyard is made to reprefent God's own people the Jews.

Thou haft brought a vine out of Egypt: thou haft caft out the Heathen, and planted it. Thou didft cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land. The hills were covered with its thadow, and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars. Why halt thou then broken down her hedges, fo that all which pafs do pluck her? The boar out of the wood doth walte it, and the wild beast doth devour it. Return, we beseech thee, O God of hotts: look down from heaven, and behold, and vifit this vine, and the vineyard thy right hand hath planted, and the branch thou madeft Strong for thyfelf.

* L. 8. cap. 6. fe&t. 2.

Pfalm So.

In a word, an allegory is in every refpect fimilar to an hieroglyphical painting, excepting only that words are ufed inftead of colours. Their effects are precifely the fame: a hieroglyphic raifes two images in the mind; one feen, which reprefents one not feen: an allegory does the fame; the representative fubject is defcribed; and refemblance leads us to apply the defcription to the fubject reprefented. In a figure of fpeech, there is no fiction of the imagination employed, as in a metaphor, nor a reprefentative fubject introduced, as in an allegory. This figure, as its name implies, regards the expreffion only, not the thought; and it may be defined, the ufing a word in a fenfe different from what is proper to it. Thus youth, or the beginning of life, is expreffed figuratively by morning of life: morning is the beginning of the day; and in that view it is employed to fignify the beginning of any other feries, life especially, the progrefs of which is reckoned by days.

Figures of fpeech are referved for a feparate fection; but metaphor and allegory are fo much connected, that they must be handled together: the rules particularly for diftinguishing the good from the bad, are common to both. We fhall therefore proceed to thefe rules, after adding fome examples to illuftrate the nature of an allegory. Horace, fpeaking of his love to Pyrrha, which was now extinguifhed, expreff eth himself thus:

Me tabulâ facer

Votiva paries indicat uvida
Sufpendiffe potenti
Vettimenta maris Deo.

Carm. 1. 1. ode 5.

Again:

Phoebus volentem prælia me loqui,
Victas et urbes, increpuit lyrâ:
Ne parva Tyrrhenum per æquor
Vela dare.

Carm. 1.

5.

ode 15.

Queen. Great Lords, wife men ne'er fit and wail their lofs,

Oroonoko. Ha! thou haft rous'd

The lion in his den: he ftalks abroad,
And the wide foreft trembles at his roar.
I find the danger now.

But cheerly feek how to redress their harms,
What though the mast be now thrown overboard,
The cable broke, the holding anchor loft,
And half our failors fwallow'd in the flood;
Yet lives our pilot ftill. Is't meet, that he
Should leave the helm, and, like a fearful lad,
With tearful eyes, add water to the fea,
And give more ftrength to that which hath too much;
While in his moan the fhip fplits on the rock,
Which industry and courage might have fav'd?
Ah, what a fhame! ah, what a fault were this!
Third Part, Henry VI. act 5. fc. 5.

Oroonoko, act 3. fc. 2.

My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill. He fenced it, gathered out the ftones thereof, planted it with the choiceft vine, built a tower in the midst of it, and alfo made a wine-prefs therein he looked that it fhould bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerufalem, and men of Judah, judge,

1 pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done? Wherefore, when I looked that it fhould bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it fhall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it thall be trodden down. And I will

lay

:

lay it wafte it fhall not be pruned, nor digged, but there fhall come up briers and thorns: I will alfo command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the houfe of Ifrael, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant. Ifaiah, v. 1.

The rules that govern metaphors, and allegories, are of two kinds : the conftruction of these figures comes under the first kind; the propriety or impropriety of introduction comes under the other. I begin with rules of the firft kind; fome of which coincide with thofe already given for fimiles; fome are peculiar to metaphors and allegories.

And in the first place, it has been obferved, that a fimile cannot be agreeable where the refemblance is either too ftrong or too faint. This holds equally in metaphor and allegory; and the reafon is the fame in all. In the following inftances, the refemblance is too faint to be agreeable.

Malcolm.
-But there's no bottom, none,
In my voluptuonfnefs: your wives, your daughters,
Your matrons, and your maids, could not fill up
The ciftern of my luft.

Ma cbeth, at 4. fc. 4.

The best way to judge of this metaphor, is to con vert it into a fimile; which would be bad, because there is fcarce any refemblance between luft and a ciftern, or betwixt enormous luft and a large ciftern.

Again:

He cannot buckle his diftemper'd caufe
Within the belt of rule.

Macbeth, act 5.fc. Zen

There is no refemblance between a diftempered caufe and any body that can be confined within a belt.