Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres: Lecture XV — Metaphor
After the preliminary observations I have made, relating to figurative language in general, I come now to treat separately of such figures of speech, as occur most frequently, and require particular attention; and I begin with metaphor. This is a figure founded entirely on the resemblance which one object bears to another. Hence, it is much allied to simile, or comparison, and is indeed no other than a comparison expressed in an abridged form. When I say of some great minister, ‘that he upholds the state, like a pillar which supports the weight of a whole edifice,’ I fairly make a comparison; but when I say of such a minister ‘ that he is the pillar of the state,’ it is now become a metaphor. The comparison betwixt the minister and a pillar, is made in the mind; but is expressed without any of the words that denote comparison. The comparison is only insinuated, not expressed: the one object is supposed to be so like the other, that, without formally drawing the comparison, the name of the one may be put in the place of the name of the other. ‘The minister is the pillar of the state.’ This, therefore, is a more lively and animated manner of expressing the resemblances which imagination traces among objects. There is nothing which delights the fancy more, than this act of comparing things together, discovering resemblances between them, and describing them by their likeness. The mind thus employed, is exercised without being fatigued; and is gratified with the consciousness of its own ingenuity. We need not be surprised, therefore, at finding all language tinctured strongly with metaphor. It insinuates itself even into familiar conversation; and unsought, rises up of its own accord in the mind. The very words which I have casually employed in describing this, are a proof of what I say; tinctured, insinuates, rises up, are all of them metaphorical expressions, borrowed from some resemblance which fancy forms between sensible objects, and the internal operations of the mind; and yet the terms are no less clear, and perhaps, more expressive, than if words had been used which were to be taken in the strict and literal sense.
Though all metaphor imports comparison, and therefore is, in that respect, a figure of thought; yet, as the words in a metaphor are not taken literally, but changed from their proper to a figurative sense, the metaphor is commonly ranked among tropes or figures of words. But provided the nature of it be well understood, it signifies very little whether we call it a figure or a trope. I have confined it to the expression of resemblance between two objects. I must remark, however, that the word metaphor is sometimes used in a looser and more extended sense; for the application of a term in any figurative signification, whether the figure be founded on resemblance, or on some other relation, which two objects bear to one another. For instance; when gray hairs are put for old age; as, ‘to bring one’s gray hairs with sorrow to the grave;’ some writers would call this a metaphor, though it is not properly one, but what rhetoricians call a metonymy; that is, the effect put for the cause; ‘ gray hairs’ being the effect of old age, but not bearing any sort of resemblance to it. Aristotle, in his Poetics, uses metaphor in this extended sense, for any figurative meaning imposed upon a word; as a whole put for the part, or a part for the whole; a species for the genus, or a genus for the species. But it would be unjust to tax this most-acute writer with any inaccuracy on this account; the minute subdivisions, and various names of tropes, being unknown in his days, and the invention of later rhetoricians. Now, however, when these divisions are established, it is inaccurate to call every figurative use of terms, promiscuously, a metaphor.
Of all the figures of speech, none comes so near to painting as metaphor, its peculiar effect is to give light and strength to description; to make intellectual ideas, in some sort, visible to the eye, by giving them colour, and substance, and sensible qualities. In order to produce this effect, however, a delicate hand is required: for, by a very little inaccuracy, we are in hazard of introducing confusion, in place of promoting perspicuity. Several rules, therefore, are necessary to be given for the proper management of metaphors. But before entering on these, I shall give one instance of a very beautiful metaphor, that I may show the figure to full advantage. I shall take my instance from Lord Bolingbroke’s remarks on the History of England. Just at the conclusion of his work, he is speaking of the behaviour of Charles I. to his last parliament; ‘In a word,’ says he, ‘about a month after their meeting, he dissolved them; and, as soon as he had dissolved them, he repented; but he repented too late of his rashness. Well might he repent; for the vessel was now full, and this last drop made the waters of bitterness overflow.’ ‘Here,’ he adds, ‘we draw the curtain, and put an end to our remarks.’ Nothing could be more happily thrown off. The metaphor, we see, is continued through several expressions. The vessel is put for the state, or temper of the nation, already full, that is, provoked to the highest by former oppressions and wrongs; this last drop, stands for the provocation recently received by the abrupt dissolution of the parliament; and the overflowing of the waters of bitterness, beautifully expresses all the effects of resentment, let loose by an exasperated people.
On this passage, we may make two remarks in passing. The one, that nothing forms a more spirited and dignified conclusion of a subject, than a figure of this kind happily placed at the close. We see the effect of it, in this instance. The author goes off with a good grace; and leaves a strong and full impression of his subject on the reader’s mind. My other remark is, the advantage which a metaphor frequently has above a formal comparison. How much would the sentiment here have been enfeebled, if it had been expressed in the style of a regular simile, thus: ‘ Well might he repent; for the state of the nation, loaded with grievances and provocations, resembled a vessel that was now full, and this superadded provocation, like the last drop infused, made their rage and resentment, as waters of bitterness, overflow.’ It has infinitely more spirit and force as it now stands, in the form of a metaphor. ‘Well might he repent: for the vessel was now full; and this last drop made the waters of bitterness overflow.’
Having mentioned, with applause, this instance from Lord Bolingbroke, I think it incumbent on me here to take notice, that, though I may have recourse to this author, sometimes, for examples of style, it is his style only, and not his sentiments, that deserve praise. It is indeed my opinion, that there are few writings in the English language, which, for the matter contained in them, can be read with less profit or fruit, than Lord Bolingbroke’s works. His political writings have the merit of a very lively and eloquent style; but they have no other; being, as to the substance, the mere temporary productions of faction and party; no better, indeed, than pamphlets written for the day. His posthumous, or as they are called, his philosophical works, wherein he attacks religion, have still less merit; for they are as loose in the style as they are flimsy in the reasoning. An unhappy instance, this author is, of parts and genius so miserably per-and passion, that, as his memory will descend to posterity with little honour, so his productions will soon pass, and are, indeed, already passing into neglect and oblivion.
Returning from this digression to the subject before us, I proceed to lay down the rules to be observed in the conduct of metaphors; and which are much the same for tropes of every kind.
The first which I shall mention, is, that they be suited to the nature of the subject of which we treat; neither too many, nor too gay, nor too elevated for it; that we neither attempt to force the subject, by means of them, into a degree of elevation which is not congruous to it; nor, on the other hand, allow it to sink below its proper dignity. This is a direction which belongs to all figurative language, and should be ever kept in view. Some metaphors are allowable, nay, beautiful, in poetry, which it would be absurd and unnatural to employ in prose; some may be graceful in orations, which would be very improper in historical or philosophical composition. We must remember, that figures are the dress of our sentiments. As there is a natural congruity between dress, and the character or rank of the person who wears it, a violation of which congruity never fails to hurt; the same holds precisely as to the application of figures to sentiment. The excessive, or unseasonable employment of them, is mere foppery in writing. It gives a boyish air to composition; and instead of raising a subject, in fact, diminishes its dignity. For, as in life, true dignity must be founded on character, not on dress and appearance, so the dignity of composition must arise from sentiment and thought, not from ornament. The affectation and parade of ornament, detract as much from an author, as they do from a man. Figures and metaphors, therefore, should on no occasion be stuck on too profusely; and never should be such as refuse to accord with the strain of our sentiment. Nothing can be more unnatural, than for a writer to carry on a train of reasoning, in the same sort of figurative language, which he would use in description. When he reasons, we look only for perspicuity; when he describes, we expect embellishment; when he divides, or relates, we desire plainness and simplicity. One of the greatest secrets in composition is, to know when to be simple. This always gives a heightening to ornament, in its proper place. The right disposition of the shade, makes the light and colouring strike the more: ‘Is enim est eloquens,’ says Cicero, ‘qui et humilia subtiliter, et magna graviter, et mediocria temperate potest dicere. Nam qui nihil potest tranquille, nihil leniter, nihil definite, distincte, potest dicere, is, cum non praeparatis auribus inflammare rem coepit, furere apud sanos, et quasi inter sobrios bacchari temulentus videtur.’* This admonition should be particularly attended to by young practitioners in the art of writing, who are apt to be carried away by an undistinguishing admiration of what is showy and florid, whether in its place or not.t
The second rule which I give, respects the choice of objects, from whence metaphors, and other figures, are to be drawn. The field for figurative language is very wide. All nature, to speak in the style of figures, opens its stores to us, and admits us to gather, from all sensible objects, whatever can illustrate intellectual or moral ideas. Not only the gay and splendid objects of sense, but the grave, the terrifying, and even the gloomy and dismal, may, on different occasions, be introduced into figures with propriety. But we must beware of ever using such allusions as raise in the mind disagreeable, mean, vulgar, or dirty ideas. Even when metaphors are chosen in order to vilify and degrade any object, an author should study never to be nauseous in his allusions. Cicero blames an orator of his time, for terming his enemy ‘Stercus Curiae;’ ‘ quamvis sit simile,’ says he, ‘tamen est deformis cogitatio similitudinis.’ But, in subjects of dignity, it is an unpardonable fault to introduce mean and vulgar metaphors. In the treatise on the Art of Sinking, in Dean Swift’s works, there is a full and humorous collection of instances of this kind,
* u He is truly eloquent, who can discourse of humble subjects in a plain style, who can treat important ones with dignity, and speak of things which are of a middle nature, in a temperate strain. For one who, upon no occasion, can express himself in a calm, orderly, distinct manner, when he begins to be on fire before his readers are prepared to kindle along with him, has the appearance of raving like a madman among persons who are in their senses, or of reeling like a drunkard in the midst of sober company.”
What person of the least taste, can bear the following passage, in a late historian? He is giving an account of the famous act of parliament against irregular marriages in England: ‘The bill,’ says he, ‘underwent a great number of alterations and amendments, which were not effected without violent contest.’ This is plain language, suited to the subject; and we naturally expect, that he should go on in the same strain, to tell us, that, after these contests, it was carried by a great majority of voices, and obtained the royal assent. But how does he express himself in finishing the period? ‘ At length, however, it was floated through both houses, on the tide of a great majority, and steered into the safe harbour of royal approbation.’ Nothing can be more puerile than such language Smollet’s History of England, as quoted in Critical Review for Oct. 1761, p 251 wherein authors, instead of exalting, have contrived to degrade, their subjects by the figures they employed. Authors of greater note than those which are there quoted, have, at times, fallen into this error. Archbishop Tillotson, for instance, is sometimes negligent in his choice of metaphors; as, when speaking of the day of judgment, he describes the world, as ‘cracking about the sinners’ ears.’ Shakspeare, whose imagination was rich and bold, in a much greater degree than it was delicate, often fails here. The following, for example, is a gross transgression; in his Henry V. having mentioned a dunghill, he presently raises a metaphor from the steam of it; and on a subject too, that naturally led to much nobler ideas:
And those that leave their valiant bones in France,
Dying like men, though buried in your dunghills,
They shall be fam’d; for there the sun shall greet them,
And draw their honours reeking up to heaven. Act IV. Sc. 8.
In the third place, as metaphors should be drawn from objects of some dignity, so particular care should be taken that the resemblance, which is the foundation of the metaphor, be clear and perspicuous, not far fetched nor difficult to discover. The transgression of this rule makes what are called harsh or forced metaphors, which are always displeasing, because they puzzle the reader, and, instead of illustrating the thought, render it perplexed and intricate. With metaphors of this kind, Cowley abounds. He, and some of the writers of his age, seem to have considered it as the perfection of wit, to hit upon likenesses between objects which no other person could have discovered; and, at the same time, to pursue those metaphors so far, that it requires some ingenuity to follow them out and comprehend them. This makes a metaphor resemble an aenigma; and is the very reverse of Cicero’s rule on this head: ‘Verecunda debet esse translatio; ut deducta esse in alienum locum non irruisse, atque ut voluntario non vi venisse videatur.** How forced and obscure, for instance, are the following verses of Cowley, speaking of his mistress:
Wo to her stubborn heart, if once mine come
Into the self-same room,
’Twill tear and blow up all within,
Like a granado, shot into a magazine.
Then shall love keep the ashes and torn parts
Of both our broken hearts;
Shall out of both one new one make;
From hers th’ alloy, from mine the metal take;
For of her heart, he from the flames will find
But little left behind;
Mine only will remain entire,
No dross was there to perish in the fire.
In this manner he addresses sleep:
In vain thou drowsy god, I thee invoke;
For thou, who dost from fumes arise,
Thou, who man’s soul dost overshade,
* 11 Fv#ry metaphor should be modest, so that it may carry the appeartmce ofHavir»f been Ved, not of having forced itself into the place of that word whose room it occu pies: thht it may seem to have come thither of its own accord, and not bv e&n Btramt *’ De Oratore, L. iii. c. 53 With a thick cloud by vapours made;
Canst have no power to shut his eyes,
Whose flame’s so pure that it sends up no smoke,
Yet how do tears but from some vapours rise!
Tears that be winter all my year;
The fate of Egypt I sustain,
And never feel the dew of rain,
From clouds which in the head appear;
But all my too much moisture owe
To overflowings of the heart below.*
Trite and common resemblances should indeed be avoided in our metaphors. To be new, and not vulgar, is a beauty. But when they are fetched from some likeness too remote, and lying too far out of the road of ordinary thought, then, besides their obscurity, they have also the disadvantage of appearing laboured, and, as the French call it, ‘ recherché,’ whereas metaphor, like every other ornament, loses its whole grace, when it does not seem natural and easy.
It is but a bad and ungraceful softening which writers sometimes use for a harsh metaphor, when they palliate it with the expression, as it were. This is but an awkward parenthesis; and metaphors, which need this apology of an as it ivere, would, generally, have been better omitted. Metaphors, too, borrowed from any of the sciences, especially such of them as belonged to particular professions, are almost always faulty by their obscurity.
In the fourth place, it must be carefully attended to, in the conduct of metaphors, never to jumble metaphorical and plain language together; never to construct a period so, that part of it must be understood metaphorically, part literally; which always produces a most disagreeable confusion. Instances which are but too frequent, even in good authors, will make this rule and the reason of it, be clearly understood. In Mr. Pope’s translation of the Odyssey, Penelope, bewailing the abrupt departure of her son Telemachus, is made to speak thus:
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 of the state is borne,
Nor took a kind adieu, nor sought consent.! IV. D62.
Here, in one line, her son is figured as a column; and in the next, he returns to be a person, to whom it belongs to take adieu, and to ask consent. This is inconsistent. The poet should either have kept himself to the idea of man in the literal sense; or, if he figured him by a column, he should have ascribed nothing to him, but what belonged to it. He was not at liberty to as-
* See an excellent criticism on this sort of metaphysical poetry, in Dr. Johnson’s Life of Cowley.
f In the original, there is no allusion to a column, and the Metaphor is regularly supported.
crib e to that column the actions and properties of a man. Such unnatural mixtures render the image indistinct: leaving it to waver, in our conception, between the figurative and the literal sense. Horace’s rule, which he applies to characters, should be observed by all writers who deal in figures:
- Servetur ad imum,
Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet.
Mr. Pope, elsewhere, addressing himself to the king, says,
To thee the world its present homage pays,
The harvest early, but mature the praise.
This, though not so gross, is a fault, however, of the same kind. It is plain that, had not the rhyme misled him to the choice of an improper phrase, he would have said,
The harvest early, but mature the crop;
And so would have continued the figure which he had begun. Whereas, by dropping it unfinished, and by employing the literal word praise, when we were expecting something that related to the harvest, the figure is broken, and the two members of the sentence have no proper correspondence with each other:
The harvest early, but mature, the praise.
The works of Ossian abound with beautiful and correct metaphors; such as that on a hero: ‘In peace, thou art the gale of spring; in war, the mountain storm.’ Or this, on a woman: ‘ She was covered with the light of beauty; but her heart was the house of pride.’ They afford, however, one instance of the fault we are now censuring: ‘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. Nor did they roll in safety; the spear of the king pursued their flight.’ At the beginning, the metaphor is very beautiful. The stream, the unmoved rock, the waves rolling back, are expressions employed in the proper and consistent language of figure; but, in the end, when we are told, ‘they did not roll in safety, because the spear of the king pursued their flight,’ the literal meaning is improperly mixed with the metaphor: they are, at one and the same time, presented to as leaves that roll, and men that may be pursued and wounded with a spear. If it be faulty to jumble together, in this manner, metaphorical and plain language, it is still more so,
In the fifth place, to make two different metaphors meet on one object. This is what is called mixed metaphor, and is indeed one of the grossest abuses of this figure; such as Shakspeare’s expression, ‘ to take arms against a sea of troubles.’ This makes a most unnatural medley, and confounds the imagination entirely. Quintilian has sufficiently guarded us against it. ‘ Id imprimis est custodiendum, ut quo genere coeperis translationis, hoc finias. Multi autem cum initium a tempestate sumserunt, incendio aut ruina finiunt; quae est inconsequentia rerum foedissima.’* Observe, for in-
* « We must be particularly attentive to end with the same kind of metaphor with which we have begun. Some, when they begin the figure with a tempest, conclude it with a conflagration,* which forms a shameful inconsistency.
stance, what an inconsistent group of objects is brought together by Shakspeare, in the following passage of the Tempest; speaking of persons recovering their judgment, after the enchantment which held them was dissolved:
- —The charm dissolves apace,
And as the morning steals upon the night,
Melting the darkness, so their rising senses
Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle
Their clearer reason. -
So many ill sorted things are here joined, that the mind can see nothing clearly; the morning stealing upon the darkness, and at the same time melting it; the senses of men chasing fumes, ignorant fumes, and fumes that mantle. So again in Romeo and Juliet:
- - As glorious,
As is the winged messenger from heaven,
Unto the white upturned wondering eyes
Of mortals, that fall back to gaze on him,
When he bestrides the lazy pacing clouds,
And sails upon the bosom of the air.
Here the angel is represented, as at one moment, bestriding the clouds, and sailing upon the air; and upon the bosom of the air too; which forms such a confused picture, that it is impossible for any imagination to comprehend it.
More correct writers than Shakspeare, sometimes fall into this error of mixing metaphors. It is surprising how the following inaccuracy should have escaped Mr. Addison, in his Letter from Italy;
in my struggling muse with pain,
That longs to launch into a bolder strain.*
The muse, figured as a horse, may be bridled; but when we speak of launching, we make it a ship; and by no force of imagination, can it be supposed both a horse and a ship at one moment; bridled to hinder it from launching. The same author, in one of his numbers in the Spectator, says, ‘ There is not a single view of human nature, which is not sufficient to extinguish the seeds of pride.’ Observe the incoherence of the things here joined together, making * a view extinguish, and extinguish seeds.’
Horace, also, is incorrect, in the following passage:
Urit enim fulgore suo qui pragravat artes
Infra se positas. - -
Urit qui prxgravat. He dazzles who bears down with his weight; makes plainly an inconsistent mixture of metaphorical ideas. Neither can this other passage be altogether vindicated:
Ah! quanta laboras in Charybdi,
Digne puer meliore flamma?
Where a whirlpool of water, Charybdis, is said to be a flame not good enough for this young man; meaning, that he was unfortunate in the object of his passion. Flame is, indeed, become al-
* In my observation on this passage, I find that I had coincided with Dr. Johnson, who passes a similar censure upon it, in his life of AddisonT most a literal word for the passion of love: but as it still retains, in some degree, its figurative power, it should never have been used as synonymous with water, and mixed with it in the same metaphor. When Mr. Pope (Eloisa to Abelard) says,
All then is full, possessing and possest,
No craving void left aking in the breast.
A void may, metaphorically, be said to crave: but can a void be said to ake?
A good rule has been given for examining the propriety of metaphors, when we doubt whether or not they be of the mixed kind; namely, that we should try to form a picture upon them, and consider how the parts would agree, and what sort of figure the whole would present, when delineated with a pencil. By this means, we should become sensible, whether inconsistent circumstances were mixed, and a monstrous image thereby produced, as in all those faulty instances I have now been giving; or whether the object was, all along, presented in one natural and consistent point of view.
As metaphors ought never to be mixed, so, in the sixth place, we should avoid crowding them together on the same object. Supposing each of the metaphors to be preserved distinct, yet, if they be heaped on one another, they produce a confusion somewhat of the same kind with the mixed metaphor. We may judge of this by the following passage from Horace:
Motum ex Metello consule civicum,
Bellique causas, et vitia et modos,
Ludumque fortunae, gravesque
Principum amicitias, et arma
Nondum expiatis uncta cruoribus;
Periculosae plenum opus aleae
Tractas, et incedis per ignes
Suppositos cineri doloso.* Lib. ii. 1.
This passage, though very poetical, is, however, harsh and obscure; owing to no other cause but this, that three distinct metaphors are crowded together, to describe the difficulty of Pollio’s writing a history of the civil wars. First, ‘ Tractas arma uncta cru-oribus nondum expiatis;’ next, ‘ opus plenum periculosae aleae;’ and then, ‘ Incedis per ignes suppositos doloso cineri.’ The mind has difficulty in passing readily through so many different views, given it in quick succession, of the same object.
The only other rule concerning metaphors which I shall add, in
* Of warm commotions, wrathful jars,
The growing seeds of civil wars;
Of double fortune’s cruel games,
The spacious means, the private aims,
And fatal friendships, of the guilty great,
Alas! how fatal to the Roman state!
Of mighty legions late subdu’d,
And arms with Latian blood embru’d;
Yet unaton’d (a labour vast!
Doubtful the die, and dire the cast!)
You treat adventurous, and incautious tread
On fires with faithless embers overspread.
the seventh place, is, that they be not too far pursued. If the resemblance, on which the figure is founded, be long dwelt upon, and carried into all its minute circumstances, we make an allegory instead of a metaphor; we tire the reader, who soon becomes weary of this play of fancy; and we render our discourse obscure. This is called straining a metaphor. Cowley deals in this to excess; and to this error is owing, in a great measure, that intricacy and harshness, in his figurative language, which I before remarked. Lord Shaftesbury is sometimes guilty of pursuing his metaphors too far. Fond, to a high degree, of every decoration of style, when once he had hit upon a figure that pleased him, he was extremely loth to part with it. Thus, in his advice to an author, having taken up soliloquy or meditation, under the metaphor of a proper method of evacuation for an author, he pursues this metaphor through several pages, under all the forms ‘ of discharging crudities, throwing off froth and scum, bodily operation, taking physic, curing indigestion, giving vent to choler, bile, flatulencies, and tumours;’ till, at last, the idea becomes nauseous. Dr. Young, also, often trespasses in the same way. The merit, however, of this writer, in figurative language, is great, and deserves to be remarked. No writer, ancient or modern, had a stronger imagination than Dr. Young, or one more fertile in figures of every kind. His metaphors are often new, and often natural and beautiful. But his imagination was strong and rich, rather than delicate and correct. Hence, in his Night Thoughts, there prevails an obscurity, and a hardness in his style. The metaphors are frequently too bold, and frequently too far pursued; the reader is dazzled, rather than enlightened; and kept constantly on the stretch to keep pace with the author. We may observe, for instance, how the following metaphor is spun out:
Thy thoughts are vagabond; all outward bound,
Midst sands, and rocks, and storms, to cruise for pleasure;
If gain’d, dear bought: and better miss’d than gain’d.
Fancy and sense, from an infected shore,
Thy cargo brings; and pestilence the prize;
Then such the thirst, insatiable thirst,
By fond indulgence but inflam’d the more,
Fancy still cruises, when poor sense is tir’d.
Speaking of old age, he says, it should
Walk thoughtful on the silent, solemn shore
Of that vast ocean, it must sail so soon;
And put good works on board; and wait the wind
That shortly blows us into worlds unknown.
The two first lines are uncommonly beautiful; ‘walk thoughtful on the silent,’ &c. but when he continues the metaphor, ‘to putting good works on board, and waiting the wind,’ it plainly becomes strained, and sinks in dignity. Of all the English authors, I know none so happy in his metaphors as Mr. Addison. His imagination was neither so rich nor so strong as Dr. Young’s; but far more chaste and delicate. Perspicuity, natural grace and ease, always distinguish his figures. They are neither harsh nor strained: they never appear to have been studied or sought after: but seem to rise of their own accord from the subject, and constantly embellish it.
I have now treated fully of the metaphor, and the rules that should govern it, a part of style so important, that it required particular illustration. I have only to add a few words concerning allegory.
An allegory may be regarded as a continued metaphor; as it is the representation of some one thing by another that resembles it, and that is made to stand for it. Thus, in Prior’s Henry and Emma, Emma, in the following allegorical manner, describes her constancy to Henry:
Did I but purpose to embark with thee
On the smooth surface of a summer’s sea,
While gentle zephyrs play with prosperous gales,
And fortune’s favour fills the swelling sails;
But would forsake the ship, and make the shore,
When the winds whistle, and the tempests roar?
We may take also from the scriptures a very fine example of an allegory, in the 80th Psalm; where the people of Israel are represented under the image of a vine, and the figure is supported throughout with great correctness and beauty; ‘ Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt, thou hast cast out the heathen and planted it. Thou preparedst room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land. The hills were covered with the shadow of it; and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars. She sent out her boughs into the sea, and her branches into the river. Why hast thou broken down her hedges, so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her! The boar out of the wood doth waste it; and the wild beast of the field doth devour it. Return, we beseech thee, O God of Hosts, look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine!’ Here there is no circumstance, (except, perhaps, one phrase at the beginning, ‘ thou hast cast out the heathen’) that does not strictly agree to a vine, whilst, at the same time, the whole quadrates happily with the Jewish state represented by this figure. This is the first and principal requisite in the conduct of an allegory, that the figurative and the literal meaning be not mixed inconsistently together. For instance, instead of describing the vine, as wasted by the boar from the wood, and devoured by the wild beast of the field, had the Psalmist said, it was afflicted by heathens, or overcome by enemies, (which is the real meaning) this would have ruined the allegory, and produced the same confusion, of which I gave examples in metaphors, when the figurative and literal sense are mixed and jumbled together. Indeed, the same rules that were given for metaphors, may also be applied to allegories, on account of the affinity they bear to each other. The only material difference between them, besides the one being short and the other being prolonged, is, that a metaphor always explains itself by the words that are connected with it in their proper and natural meaning; as when I say ‘Achilles was a lion;’ an ‘able minister is the pillar of the state.’ My lion and my pillar are sufficiently interpreted by the mention of Achilles and the minister, which I join to them: but an allegory is, or may be, allowed to stand more disconnected with the literal meaning; the interpretation not so directly pointed out, but left to our own reflection.
Allegories were a favourite method of delivering instructions in ancient times; for what we call fables or parables, are no other than allegories; where, by words and actions attributed to beasts or inanimate objects, the dispositions of men are figured; and what we call the moral, is the unfigured sense or meaning of the allegory. An aenigma, or riddle, is also a species of allegory; one thing represented or imagined by another; but purposely wrapt up under so many circumstances, as to be rendered obscure. Where a riddle is not intended, it is always a fault in allegory to be too dark. The meaning should be easily seen through the figure employed to shadow it. However, the proper mixture of light and shade in such compositions, the exact adjustment of all the figurative circumstances with the literal sense, so as neither to lay the meaning too bare and open, nor to cover and wrap it up too much, has ever been found an affair of great nicety; and there are few species of composition in which it is more difficult to write so as to please and command attention, than in allegories. In some of the visions of the Spectator, we have examples of allegories very happily executed.
Questions
After the preliminary observations made relating to figurative language in general, of what does our author