Like the sun's laborious light,
Which still in water sets at night,

Unsullied with the journey of the day."

By a good deal of study and thought we can trace here some resemblance between the two objects compared, that is, the man lying down at night bathed in tears, and the sun setting in the ocean; but the resemblance is faint, and requires entirely too much study. The simile is far-fetched.

It is worse even than this. There is absolute falsehood in the figure. The author states as a fact that the sun purges itself in the water, and this falsehood disappoints and vexes the reader.

An example of more recent date is the following from Longfellow:

The day is done, and the darkness

Falls from the wing of night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

RULE 3. Similes should not be drawn from objects with which ordinary readers are unacquainted.

What is Excluded. — This rule excludes comparisons founded on scientific discoveries, or on objects with which persons of a certain trade only, or a certain profession, are conversant. In accordance with this rule, also, it is well to avoid drawing comparisons from ordinary objects in foreign countries, with which most readers are acquainted by reading only.

Further Cautions.-There are indeed certain noted objects, such as the Pyramids, the Alps, the Nile, the Tiber, Rome, Jerusalem, London, and so forth, with which well-read people everywhere are familiar. But, as a general thing, writers should take their illustrations from objects which exist in their own country, and which they and their readers have seen. It is well enough for English poets to sing of the nightingale, whose high note is heard from the boughs in the stillness of midnight, and of the sky-lark, which "at break of day sings hymns at heaven's gate;" but American poets and readers know nothing of either except from books.

RULE 4. Similes should not, in serious discourse, be drawn from objects which are mean or low.

This rule does not apply to Burlesque, or to writings intended to degrade and vilify. In such writings, the very aim of the author is to bring an object into ridicule or contempt, by associating it in the mind with something mean or ridiculous. But in ordinary discourse, the aim is just the opposite, and care should be taken accordingly that the objects to which anything is compared should not only possess a likeness to it, but that they should be of a pleasing and elevating character.

Examples.-There may be truth in the following comparison from Pope, but the simile offends the reader, because it associates the name of a great and good man with a mean and degrading idea:

Superior beings, when of late they saw
A mortal man unfold all nature's law,
Admired such wisdom in an earthly shape,
And showed à Newton as we show an ape.

The two following examples may perhaps be allowable, because the aim of the writer is to belittle the subject:

"Mr. would be a powerful preacher if he did not drown his thought in a Dead Sea of words. You don't want a drove of oxen to drag a cart-load of potatoes over a smooth road."

"Skepticism in an honest and thoughtful young man is like the chicken-pox,— very apt to come, but not dangerous, and soon over, leaving both complexion and constitution as good as ever."

RULE 5. Similes should not be drawn from great or sublime objects, when we are describing what is low or trivial.

Such comparisons may be proper in mock-heroic, or burlesque, but not in serious composition.

A popular orator, speaking of one of our common anniversary-days, uses the following language: "Pharos of the ages, we hail thy glimmerings 'mid the cataracts of Time."

RULE 6. Similes are inappropriate when strong passion is to be expressed.

To pause for the purpose of hunting up curious likenesses and comparisons, implies leisure and deliberation; and passion, just in proportion to its force, is unhesitating and rapid. It has no leisure to cast about for resemblances.

The hero in Addison's Cato, in a moment of violent anguish at the separation from his lady-love, makes the following elaborate comparison, which, under the circumstances, cannot be regarded otherwise than as affected:

Thus o'er the dying lamp th' unsteady flame

Hangs quiv'ring on a point, leaps off by fits,

And falls again, as loth to quit its hold.

Thou must not go; my soul still hovers o'er thee,

And can't get loose.

II. METAPHOR.

Metaphor is a figure founded upon the resemblance which one object bears to another. Hence it is nearly allied to Simile. A metaphor is, indeed, a sort of abridged simile.

Difference between Metaphor and Simile. If we say of a great statesman, "He upholds the state, like the pillar which upholds an edifice," we make the comparison by a Simile. If we say of him, "He is the pillar of the state," we make the same comparison by a Metaphor. In simile, the comparison is usually expressed by like, as, such as, or words of similar import. In metaphor, the comparison, if made at all, is not formally expressed in words. One object is assumed to be so like another, that things properly belonging to the one are attributed to the other, without stopping to draw a formal comparison between them without, in fact, stopping to think whether such a likeness exists or not. If the metaphor expresses, or even suggests comparison, that metaphor is faulty. Not that a metaphor may not be taken to pieces, and be shown to owe its existence to comparison; but it should not, at first sight, suggest comparison. The figure should be so involved in the subject that you can hardly pull the two apart. In simile, on the contrary, the subject and the figure are but Siamese twins: a whip of the knife, and the two are divided, without damage to either.

Effectiveness of Metaphor. The metaphor is a more lively and animated method than the simile for expressing comparison. Metaphor, indeed, of all the figures, comes nearest to painting, enabling us to clothe at will the most abstract ideas with life, form, color, and motion, and to "give to airy nothing a local habitation and a name." A few examples will show how much more condensed and effective the metaphor is than the simile.

Simile: As it is a flattering condescension when the eye of a sovereign rests upon a subject, so it is when the light of the morning sun first falls upon the mountaintops. As an image of burnished gold, when brought within kissing distance of any dull objects, lights them up with its own shining radiance, making them also look like gold, so the morning rays of the sun, after first touching the mountain-tops, descend gradually to the valleys, lighting up the green meadows and the pale streams, as with some heavenly gilding.

Metaphor:

Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-top with sovran eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,

Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy. - Shakspeare.

Simile: As, in passing through a prism, beams of white light are decomposed Into the colors of the rainbow; so, in traversing the soul of the poet, the colorless rays of truth are transformed into bright-tinted poetry.

Metaphor: The white light of truth, in traversing the many-sided transparent soul of the poet, is refracted into iris-hued poetry.- Herbert Spencer.

Simile: The temper of the nation, loaded already with grievances, was like a vessel that is now full, and this additional provocation, like the last drop infused, made their rage and resentment as waters of bitterness overflow.

Metaphor: The vessel was now full, and this last drop made the waters of bitterness overflow. - Bolingbroke.

Rules for Simile and for Metaphor. The rules which have been given in regard to the Simile apply in some measure to the Metaphor also. Metaphors ordinarily should not be drawn from things having too near and obvious a resemblance, from things in which the likeness is too faint or remote, from things with which ordinary readers are unacquainted, from objects mean and low, or from objects too far above that which they are intended to illustrate. Metaphors, however, are often used for the expression of strong passion, and in this respect differ materially from similes. Metaphor, being an abbreviated simile, suits very well the rapid vehemence of passion.

Examples of this abound in Shakspeare. No portions of his plays so teem with metaphor as those most highly tragical. The Bastard in King John, seeing Hubert take up the body of the murdered Prince, exclaims,

How easy dost thou take all England up!

When the assassin discloses to the Prince the red-hot iron, and declares that he has come to burn out the Prince's eyes therewith, Arthur begs him not to be more cruel than even the instrument of torture:

The iron of itself, though heat red-hot,

Approaching near these eyes, would drink my tears,
And quench his fiery indignation

Even in the matter of mine innocence.

As the rules relating especially to the Simile illustrate to some extent the Metaphor, so also the rules relating especially to the Metaphor illustrate to some extent the use of the Simile. The rules which more particularly limit the use of the Metaphor are the following:

RULE 1. The metaphorical and the literal should not be mixed in the same sentence.

Rule Explained. — A metaphor having been introduced into a sentence, all parts of the sentence should be made to conform to the figure thus introduced. This rule is violated when part of the words are such as apply to the figure, and part are plain and literal.

Examples.-Dryden says, speaking of the aids he had had in some of his literary labors, "I was sailing in a vast ocean [metaphor], without other help than the pole-star [metaphor continued] of the ancients, and the rules of the French stage [literal] among the moderns."

In Pope's translation of Homer, Penelope, speaking of the loss of her husband, and then of the abrupt departure of her son, says:

Long to my joys my dearest lord is lost,

His country's buckler, and the Grecian boast;
Now, from my fond embrace by tempests torn,
Our other column [met.] of the state is borne,
Nor took a kind adieu, nor sought consent.

Here her son is figured in one line as a column, and in the next he is a person, to whom it belongs to take adieu, and to ask consent. This is incongruous. It is mixing up the metaphorical and the literal in the same construction. Having spoken of Telemachus under the metaphor of a column, the author should not have ascribed to him in that sentence anything but what could be ascribed to a column. "Boyle was the father of Chemistry, and brother to the Earl of Cork."

To thee the world its present homage pays,

The harvest [met.] early, but mature [met.] the praise [lit.].

The fault here is not serious. Yet every reader feels that but for the sake of a rhyme, the second line would have ended "mature the crop."

Examples of Correct Metaphor. -The following are examples of sentences in which the language of the metaphor is sustained and consistent throughout:

Speaking of the king's honor: "The feather that adorns the royal bird supports his flight. Strip him of his plumage, and you fix him to the earth.”—Junius.

"In the shipwreck of the state, trifles float and are preserved; while everything solid and valuable sinks to the bottom, and is lost forever."- Junius.

Of a hero: "In peace, thou art the gale of spring; in war, the mountain storm."— Ossian.

Of a woman: "She was covered with the light of beauty; but her heart was the bearer of pride."— Ossian.

"Trothal went forth with the stream of his people, but they met a rock: for Fingal stood unmoved; broken, they rolled back from his side."- Ossian.

Speaking of an artist:

"You make him but the spigot of a cask,

Round which you, teachers, wait with silver cups

To bear away the wine that leaves it dry."- Holland's Kathrina.

RULE 2. Two different metaphors should not be used in the same sentence and in reference to the same subject.

This produces what is called mixed metaphor, and is a worse fault even than mixing the metaphorical and the literal in the same sentence.

Examples.-Shakspeare's expression, "To take arms against a sea of troubles, '

is open to criticism on this ground. Addison says:

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