Religion:-God, angel, offering, sacrifice, atonement, prayer, propitiation, intercession, sacrament, priest, worship, bible, revelation, inspiration, divine, heaven, hell.

Recreations:-Games, sports, cards, dice, chess, counters, hunt, snare, trap, decoy, angle, hook, bait.

Historical Allusions:-The geese in the capitol, the gordian knot, crossing the Rubicon, magna charta.

Customs of Nations:-Avatar, Juggernaut, palaver, ordeal.

Feelings and Operations of the Mind:-Sweet, soft, harsh, sour, charm, rejoice, kiss, laugh, smile, frown, angry, loving, relent, disdain.

SIMILE, OR COMPARISON.

16. Simile, or Comparison, consists in likening one thing to another formally or expressly. "As the stars, so shall thy seed be." "The condemnation of Socrates took him away in his full grandeur and glory, like the setting of a tropical sun."

The following are further examples :

(1.) "True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learnt to dance."

(2.) "We have often thought that the public mind in our country resembles that of the sea when the tide is rising. Each successive wave rushes forward, breaks, and rolls back; but the great flood is steadily coming on."

(3.) "Nothing is more dangerous to reason than the flights of imagination, and nothing has been the occasion of more mistakes among philosophers. Men of bright fancies may, in this respect, be compared to those angels whom the Scriptures represent as cov ering their eyes with their wings.'

(4.)

kk
"I have ventured,

Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory."

(5.) "It is on the death-bed, on the couch of sorrow and of pain, that the thought of one purely virtuous action is like the shadow of a lofty rock in the desert-like the light footsteps of that little child who continued to dance before the throne of the unjust king, when his guards had fled, and his people had forsaken him-like the single thin stream of light which the unhappy captive has at last learned to love-like the soft sigh before the breeze that wafts the becalmed vessel and her famished crew to the haven where they would be."

(6.) "The illusion that great men and great events came oftener in early times than now, is partly due to historical perspective. As

in a range of equidistant columns, the farthest off look the closest; so the conspicuous objects of the past seem more thickly clustered, the more remote they are."

The characteristic effects of these examples have been given by anticipation (p. 24).

The terms "simile" and "comparison" are sometimes co:sidered as slightly different in meaning. When a likeness is followed out in detail, it is called a comparison, in the stricter meaning of the term.

METAPHOR.

17. Metaphor is a comparison implied in the language used: as, he bridles his anger; he was a lion in combat; the fact is clear.

This figure is in frequent use. By dispensing with the phrases of comparison-like, as, &c.-it has the advantages of being brief and of not disturbing the structure of the composition.

Like similitudes generally, Metaphors may (1) aid the understanding, (2) deepen the impression on the feelings, and (3) give an agreeable surprise.

Examples:

(1.) To aid the understanding:-"The wish is father to the thought;""the light of Nature;" "the geological record; "reasoning in a circle; "the moralist is a scout for consequences."

"Athens, the eye of Greece,

Mother of arts and eloquence."

(2.) To deepen the impression on the feelings:-"I speared him with a jest; ""the town was stormed;" "to let loose these horrible hounds of war; "the news was a dagger to his heart;""the power of directing the local disposition of the army is the royal prerogative, the master-feather in the eagle's wing." (Chatham.)

"At length Erasmus

Stemm'd the wild torrent of a barbarous age,
And drove those holy Vandals off the stage."

METAPHOR.

"Canst thou minister unto a mind diseased-
Pluck from the heart a rooted sorrow?"

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The following is a picturesque metaphor:-"They sank like lead in the mighty waters."

(3.) Agreeable surprise:- Speaking of the king's honor, Junius varies the figure of Chatham: "The feather that adorns the royal bird, supports his flight. Strip him of his plumage, and you fix him to the earth." Again, "In the shipwreck of the state, trifles float and are preserved; while everything solid and valuable sinks to the bottom, and is lost for ever."

The condensation obtained by the metaphor, as compared with the simile, may be shown in this instance. (Simile :) "As, in passing through the crystal, 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 brightly-tinted poetry." Transformed into metaphors:"The white light of truth, in traversing the many-sided transparent soul of the poet, is refracted into iris-hued poetry." (Spencer's Essays-Philosophy of Style.)

18. The personifying Metaphors are chiefly subservient to the purposes of poetry.

19. The coining of Metaphors is a means of increasing the names in a language.

Metaphorical expressions pervade every language. All the simple prepositions-of, to, for, in, at, with—originally referred to place and motion; but they have been extended by metaphor to other relations:-" honor to the brave."

The technical language of Anatomy is in great part metaphorical-pons varolii, hippocampus major, true skin, labyrinth

of the ear. It is the same with the language of the common

arts.

20. Metaphor is largely employed in expressing the more hidden operations of the mind. Thus, knowledge is light, passion is fire, depression of spirits is gloom: the thought struck him.

So we speak of a ray of hope, a shade of doubt, a flight of fancy, a flash of wit, ebullitions of anger. All the names of mental operations were originally applied to something sensible; as perception, apprehension, conception, recollection, deliberation, inspiration, imagination, sagacity (originally quickness of smell), acuteness, penetration, emotion, expression.

Words originally applied to the operations of the senses, are transferred to those of the understanding: "I see (that is, understand) what you mean.' So "taste is made to signify

discrimination in the fine arts.

21. By frequent use, metaphors may lose their figurative character.

As in the case of melancholy (black bile), edify (build), acuteness (sharpness), ardor (heat), express (to press out), enhance (lift), provide (see beforehand), detect (unroof), &c.

In these instances, the original meaning is no longer sug gested to the mind. In other cases, the words are still used in their primitive as well as in a figurative sense, and hence they continue to have a certain illustrative force of similarity; as, light, color, fire, fountain, sources, root, life, thunder, star, field, clear, hard, piercing, follow, shelter, mask, ruminate.

22. Besides the faults arising in the employment of figures of similarity in general, there are some more particularly attaching to the metaphor.

(1.) The Mixed Metaphor. This arises when in the same expression metaphors from different subjects are combined; as, "to kindle a seed," "to take arms against a sea of troubles."

We may sow a seed or kindle a flame; but the mind is

MIXED METAPHORS.

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confused when incompatible operations are required to be joined.

The following example has often been quoted from Addison's poem on the victories of Marlborough:—

"I bridle in my struggling muse with pain,

That longs to launch into a bolder strain.”

Three different actions are here conjoined in one.

"The noble harbor of the Golden Horn, five miles in length, crowded with all the flags of Europe lying in its bosom."

The following line from Young, although a mixed metaphor, is considered elegant and expressive:

"Her voice is but the shadow of a sound.

In like manner, many of the mixed metaphors in Shakespeare are redeemed by their effectiveness and originality.

The mixture of the metaphorical and the plain, or literal, is also objectionable. Dryden, speaking of the aids he had in his translations, says, "I was sailing in a vast ocean without other help than the pole-star of the ancients, and the rules of the French stage among the moderns." "Boyle was the father of Chemistry, and brother to the Earl of Cork."

When words have lost their metaphorical meaning, the incongruity is no longer felt. There are, however, many words that have ceased to be metaphors, but still so far suggest their original meaning as to give the sense of harmony when the figure is attended to. Thus, to say "the impression was conveyed" involves a certain degree of inconsistency, although quite intelligible. "Upon the style it is that these perplexities depend for their illumination." Perplexity should be disentangled, and obscurity illuminated.

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Our language has many combinations of words, indifferent as regards the metaphor, but fixed by use, and therefore not to be departed from. We say use or employ means," and "take steps," but not use steps. One may acquire knowledge, take degrees, contract habits, lay up treasure, obtain rewards, win prizes, gain celebrity, arrive at honors, conduct affairs, espouse a side, interpose authority, pursue a course, turn to account, serve for a warning, bear no malice, profess principles, cultivate