Mr. Pope, elsewhere, addreffing himself to the LECT. King, fays,

To thee the World its present homage pays,

The harveft early, but mature the praise.

This, though not fo grofs, is a fault, however, of the fame kind. It is plain, that, had not the rhyme misled him to the choice of an improper phrase, he would have said,

The harveft early, but mature the crop :

And fo would have continued the Figure which he had begun. Whereas, by dropping it unfinished, and by employing the literal word, praife, when we were expecting fomething that related to the Harveft, the Figure is broken, and the two members of the fentence have no proper correfpondence with each other:

The Harvest early, but mature the Praise.

THE Works of Offian abound with beautiful and correct Metaphors; fuch as that on a Hero: "In peace, thou art the Gate 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." ever, one inftance of the fault we are now cenfuring: Trothal went forth with the "Stream of his people, but they met a Rock: " for

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They afford, how

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LFC T. for Fingal flood unmoved; broken they

XV.

"rolled back from his fide. Nor did they "roll in fafety; the fpear of the King pur"fued their flight." At the beginning, the Metaphor is very beautiful. The Stream, the unmoved Rock, the Waves rolling back broken, are expreffions employed in the proper and confiftent language of Figure; but, in the end, when we are told, "they did not. "roll in fafety, because the spear of the King "pursued their flight," the literal meaning is improperly mixed with the Metaphor: they are, at one and the fame time, prefented to us as waves that roll, and men that may be purfued and wounded with a spear. If it be faulty to jumble together, in this manner, metaphorical and plain language, it is ftill more fo,

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 groffeft abuses of this Figure; fuch as Shakespeare's expreffion," "to take arms

against a sea of troubles." This makes a most unnatural medley, and confounds the imagination entirely. Quinctilian has fufficiently guarded us against it. "Id imprimis "eft cuftodiendum, ut quo "tranflationis, hoc finias.

genere cœperis

Multi autem

" cùm initium a tempeftate fumferunt, in

"cendio

of

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"cendio aut ruina finiunt; quæ eft incon L ECT. "fequentia rerum fœdiffima *." Obferve, for inftance, what an inconfiftent groupe objects is brought together by Shakespeare, in the following paffage of the Tempeft; speaking of perfons recovering their judgment after the enchantment, which held them, was diffolved:

The charm diffolves apace,

And as the morning fteals upon the night
Melting the darkness, so their rifing senses
Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle
Their clearer reason.

So many ill-forted things are here joined, that
the mind can fee nothing clearly; the morn-
ing tealing upon the darkness, and at the
fame time melting it; the fenfes of men chafing
fumes, ignorant fumes, and fumes that mantle.
So again in Romeo and Juliet:

-as glorious,

As is a winged meffenger from heaven,
Unto the white upturned wondering eyes
Of mortals, that fall back to gaze on him,
When he beftrides the lazy pacing clouds,
And fails upon the bofom of the air.

* "We must be particularly attentive to end with the "fame kind of Metaphor with which we have begun. "Some, when they begin the figure with a Tempeft, con"clude it with a Conflagration; which forms a shameful inconfiftency."

XV.

LECT. Here, the Angel is reprefented, as, at one moment, bestriding the clouds, and failing upon the air; and upon the bofom of the air too; which forms fuch a confufed picture, that it is impoffible for any imagination to comprehend it.

MORE correct writers than Shakespeare fometimes fall into this error of mixing Metaphors. It is furprifing how the following inaccuracy fhould have efcaped Mr. Addison in his Letter from Italy:

I bridle in my ftruggling mufe with pain,
That longs to launch into a bolder ftrain *.

The mufe, figured as a horse, may be bridled; but when we speak of launching, we make it a fhip; and, by no force of imagination, can it be fuppofed both a horfe and a ship at one moment; bridled, to hinder it from launching. The fame Author, in one of his Numbers in the Spectator, fays, "There is not a fingle "view of human nature, which is not fuffi"cient to extinguish the feeds of pride." Obferve the incoherence of the things here joined together, making a view extinguish, and "extinguifh feeds."

*In my obfervation on this paffage, I find, that I had coincided with Dr. Johnfon, who paffes a fimilar cenfure upon it, in his Life of Addifon.

HORACE

HORACE alfo, is incorrect, in the following LECT.

paffage :

Urit enim fulgore fuo qui pregravat artes
Infra fe pofitas.

Urit qui pregravat.-He dazzles who bears
down with his weight;, makes plainly an in-
confiftent mixture of metaphorical ideas.
Neither can this other paffage be altogether
vindicated:

Ah! quantâ laboras in Charybdi,
Digne puer, meliore flammâ !

Where a whirlpool of water, Charybdis, is
faid to be a flame, not good enough for this
young man; meaning, that he was unfor-
tunate in the object of his paffion. Flame is,
indeed, become almoft a literal word for the
paffion of love; but as it ftill retains, in fome
degree, its figurative power, it should never
have been used as fynonymous with water, and
mixed with it in the fame Metaphor. When
Mr. Pope (Eloifa to Abelard) fays,

All then is full, poffeffing and poffeft,

No craving void left aking in the breast ;

A void may, metaphorically, be faid to crave; but can a void be faid 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,

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