generally impossible, but nevertheless conveying or illustrating some moral instruction, or some opinion.

It differs from an Allegory, first, in being improbable and necessarily fictitious, and second, in convey. ing generally one simple moral lesson, or opinion, without exhibiting numerous points of similarity, as the Allegory does, between the thing described and the instruction meant.

In the Second Book of Kings, chap. xiv. ver. 9, we read:

"The thistle that was in Lebanon sent to the cedar that was in Lebanon, saying, Give thy daughter to my son to wife: and there passed by a wild beast that was in Lebanon, and trode down the thistle."

This of course could not be true, and it is therefore a fable, but the meaning of it was well understood when it was first uttered.

No better fables have ever been written than the famous productions commonly called the Fables of Æsop, which have probably been wrought into their present expressiveness and beauty by many different minds.

45. The Use of Fables.-Fables are seldom introduced into sober composition to illustrate and enforce truth, on account of the difficulty of constructing one that shall be at the same time dignified and appropriate. They are generally composed by writers who have a genius for them, or who study to produce them, and they are often alluded to or quoted by other writers. Among the ancient Athenians it was a common amusement for some one at a dinner-table

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to relate a fable for the gratification of his friends. Roman history presents an instance in which a fable was invented and related with good effect. The Plebeians were in rebellion against the Patricians, when, to appease their violence, Menenius Agrippa is said to have related to the people the following fable:

"Once on a time all the members of the body revolted against the Belly, because it received every thing and contributed nothing. So the Hand said it would no longer carry food to the Mouth; the Mouth said it would no longer receive it; and the Teeth said they would no longer chew it. They all declared they would no longer slave, as they had done, for the lazy and ungrateful Belly. So they rose in insurrection; but, lo! while the rebellious members sought to punish the Belly, they languished and punished themselves."*

46. Further Illustrations of the Allegory.—Allegories are much more frequently employed. It would be easy to collect a volume of them from the best authors in the English language.

Plato, in one of his profound Dialogues,† describes an under-ground cave, having an opening toward the light of a great fire, peopled by persons who have worn chains on their legs and necks all their lives. Between the fire and the miserable creatures is a road, and they are amusing themselves with looking at their own shadows on the opposite wall and listening to words that seem to come from the images, but are only echoes of their own voices. The description is

*This story, related in Roman history, has been repeated by many; among others, by Shakspeare in Coriolanus, act i. scene 1, who has expanded it without improvement. The apostle Paul has presented the same illustration, in the form of a supposition, very forcibly in 1 Corinthians xii. 20.

The Republic, book vii. chap. i.

carried out into several pages, and is an allegory de scribing the miserable condition of men in this world, as it seemed to Plato.

Often what may properly be considered an allegory is introduced by a few words of explanation that put the reader upon the right track, and make it easy for him to understand the author's real meaning. Thus Coleridge, in his "Biographia Literaria,” proposes an association of learned men to examine all literary productions as they appear, and decide upon their merits. He calls this proposed association à "critical machine." These words seem to have suggested to him such correspondences between the workings of a critical association and a machine as naturally shaped themselves into an allegory, thus:

"Should any literary Quixote* find himself provoked by its sounds and regular movements, I should admonish him, with Sancho Panza, that it is no giant, but a windmill; there it stands on its own place and its own hillock, never goes out of its way to attack any one, and to none and from none either gives or asks assistance. When the public press has poured in any part of its produce between its millstones, it grinds it off, one man's sack the same as another, and with whatever wind may then happen to be blowing. All the two-andthirty winds are alike its friends. Of the whole wide atmosphere it does not desire a single finger-breadth more than what is necessary for its sails to turn round in. But this space must be left free and unimpeded. Gnats, beetles, wasps, bottle-flies, and the whole tribe of ephemerals and insignificants, may flit in and out and between; may hum, and buzz, and jar; may shrill their tiny pipes, and wind their puny horns, unchastised and unnoticed. But idlers and bravadoes of larger size and prouder show must beware how they place themselves within its sweep. Much less may they presume to lay hands

*Referring to Don Quixote, who is represented as a crazy knight, in one instance fighting with a windmill, of which fact he is informed by his servant Sancho Panza.

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on the sails, the strength of which is neither greater nor less than as the wind is which drives them round. Whomsoever the remorseless arm slings aloft, or whirls along with it in the air, he has himself alone to blame; though, when the same arm throws him from it, it will more often double than break the force of his fall."*

Such allegories have been called continued metaphors, but incorrectly. A metaphor is a condensed single comparison between two objects, but this is a series of comparisons or strange likenesses between two different objects. Each item in the description, for instance, of the above critical windmill, has some reference to the effect that the association imagined might have.

Some good specimens of allegories are, “The Empire of Poetry," by Fontenelle (translated from the French); "The Hill of Science," by Dr. Aiken, and "The Mountains of Miseries" (and several others, in the Spectator), by Addison; "The Pilgrim's Progress," by Bunyan; "The Celestial Railroad," by Hawthorne, and the "Dream of the Destruction of the Bible," by Rogers.

47. Short Allegories.—It must not be supposed that allegories are necessarily long. They are often brief. Thus when Quintilian, pleading for a polished style of writing, makes use of the following expressions, he really employs an allegory, and such allegories are

common..

"I should prefer a block of Parian marble to a statue, cut even by the hand of a Praxiteles out of a millstone; but were the same master to polish that block, it would become more precious, through his art, than its own value."

Quintilian here did not intend primarily to express ** Coleridge's Complete Works (New York, 1854), vol. iii. p. 454.

any opinion about the comparative value of marble and coarse stones; but while he used those words he intended that his readers should understand that a good thought poorly expressed (a block of marble roughly hewed) is better than a poor thought rhetorically expressed (a statue made of a millstone by Praxiteles); but that he would prefer the good thought beautifully expressed (the marble block wrought up and polished):

Happy is the author who can judiciously illustrate and ornament his productions with the occasional use of allegory.

48. Relation of Allegory to Art.-The principle of the Allegory is the foundation of a large department of the works of art; Temperance is represented as a woman with a bridle; Firmness as a woman leaning against a pillar. Hope, Courage, War, Peace, Commerce, Life, Death, all have their appropriate emblems. An emblematic painting may be intrinsically beautiful, and also strikingly illustrate some passion or the result of some custom, or some law of mind. The "Voyage of Life" has been allegorically presented in a series of pictures. The career of a gambler, a drunkard, an ambitious man, a Christian, might be represented in a series of paintings or statues. Even architecture derives an interest from the principle of the Allegory. The heavy Gothic style is felt to symbolize mystery, profundity, and to awaken reverence, and is therefore suited to a house of worship, while the lighter. Grecian styles betoken rather cheerfulness and social pleasure. Many of these suggestions may be deemed