"So Philomela, from th'umbrageous wood, In strains melodious mourns her tender brood, Snatch'd from the nest by some rude ploughman's hand, On some lone bough the warbler takes her stand: And hill and dale resound the plaintive song." Here we not only find the most scrupulous propriety, and the happiest choice, in comparing the Thracian bard to Philomel the poet of the grove; but also the most beautiful description, containing a fine touch of the pathos, in which last particular indeed Virgil, in our opinion, excels all other poets, whether ancient or modern. One would imagine that nature had exhausted itself, in order to embellish the poems of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, with similes and metaphors. The first of these very often · uses the comparison of the wind, the whirlwind, the hail, the torrent, to express the rapidity of his combatants; but when he comes to describe the velocity of the immortal horses that drew the chariot of Juno, he raises his ideas to the subject, and, as Longinus observes, measures every leap by the whole breadth of the horizon. Οσσον δ ̓ ἠεροειδὲς ἀνὴρ ἴδεν ὀφθαλμοῖσιν Ημενος ἐν σκοπιή, λεύσσων ἐπὶ οἴνοπα πόντον, "For as a watchman from some rock on high O'er the wide main extends his boundless eye; The celerity of this goddess seems to be a favourite idea with the poet; for in another place, he compares it to the thought of a traveller revolving in his mind the different places he had seen, and passing through them in imagination more swift than the lightning flies from east to west. Homer's best similes have been copied by Virgil, and almost every succeeding poet, howsoever they may have varied in the manner of expression. In the third book of the Iliad, Menelaus seeing Paris, is compared to a hungry lion espying a hind or goat : Ὥσε λέων ἐχάρη μεγάλῳ ἐπὶ σώματι κύρσας The Mantuan bard, in the tenth book of the Eneid, applies the same simile to Mezentius, when he beholds Acron in the battle. "Impastus stabulâ altâ leo ceu sæpe peragrans Conspexit capream, aut surgentem in cornua cervum ; "Then as a hungry lion, who beholds A gamesome goat who frisks about the folds, The reader will perceive that Virgil has improved the simile in one particular, and in another fallen short of his original. The description of the lion shaking his mane, opening his hideous jaws distained with the blood of his prey, is great and picturesque; but on the other hand, he has omitted the circumstance of devouring it without being intimidated, or restrained by the dogs and youths that surround him; a circumstance that adds greatly to our idea of his strength, intrepidity, and importance. ESSAY XXII. ON THE USE OF HYPERBOLE. Of all the figures in poetry, that called the Hyperbole is managed with the greatest difficulty. The hyperbole is an exaggeration with which the muse is indulged for the better illustration of her subject, when she is warmed into enthusiasm. Quintilian calls it an ornament of the bolder kind. Demetrius Phalereus is still more severe. He says the hyperbole is of all forms of speech the most frigid; Máxıra δὲ ἡ Ὑπερβολὴ ψυχή τατον πάντων ; but this must be understood with some grains of allowance. Poetry is animated by the passions; and all the passions exaggerate. Passion itself is a magnifying medium. There are beautiful instances of the hyperbole in the Scripture, which a reader of sensibility cannot read without being strongly affected. The difficulty lies in choosing such hyperboles as the subject will admit of; for, according to the definition of Theophrastus, the frigid in style is that which exceeds the expression suitable to the subject. The judgment does not revolt against Homer for representing the horses of Ericthonius running over the standing corn without breaking off the heads, because the whole is considered as a fable, and the north wind is represented as their sire; but the imagination is a little startled, when Virgil, in imitation of this hyperbole, exhibits Camilla as flying over it without even touching the tops. "Illa vel intactæ segetis per summa volaret Gramina" (1) This elegant author, we are afraid, has upon some other occasions degenerated into the frigid, in straining to improve upon his great master. Homer, in the Odyssey, a work which Longinus does not scruple to charge with bearing the marks of old age, describes a storm in which all the four winds were concerned together. Σὺν δ ̓ Ευρός τε, Νοτός τ ̓ ἔπεσε, Ζεφυρός τε δυσαής, Καὶ Βορέης αιθρηγενετης μέγα λύμα κυλίνδων. We know that such a contention of contrary blasts could not possibly exist in nature; for even in hurricanes the winds blow alternately from different points of the compass. Nethertheless, Virgil adopts the description, and adds to its extravagance. "Incubuêre mari, totumque à sedibus imis Unà Eurusque Notusque ruunt, creberque procellis Here the winds not only blow together, but they turn the whole body of the ocean topsy-turvy.— "East, west, and south, engage with furious sweep, And from its lowest bed upturn the foaming deep." The north wind, however, is still more mischievous:"Stridens aquilone procella Velum adversa ferit, fluctusque ad sidera tollit. "The sail then Boreas rends with hideous cry, And whirls the madd'ning billows to the sky." The motion of the sea between Scylla and Charybdis is still more magnified; and Ætna is exhibited as throwing (1) ["Outstripp'd the winds in speed upon the plain, Flew o'er the fields, nor hurt the bearded grain."-DRYDEN.] out volumes of flame, which brush the stars.(1) Such expressions as these are not intended as a real representation of the thing specified; they are designed to strike the reader's imagination; but they generally serve as marks of the author's sinking under his own ideas, who, apprehensive of injuring the greatness of his own conception, is hurried into excess and extravagance. Quintilian allows the use of hyperbole, when words are wanting to express any thing in its just strength or due energy then, he says, it is better to exceed in expression than fall short of the conception; but he likewise observes, that there is no figure or form of speech so apt to run into fustian. Nec aliâ magis viá in xaxonλav itur. If the chaste Virgil has thus trespassed upon poetical probability, what can we expect from Lucan but hyberboles even more ridiculously extravagant? He represents the winds in contest, the sea in suspense, doubting to which it shall give way. He affirms, that its motion would have been so violent as to produce a second deluge, had not Jupiter kept it under by the clouds; and as to the ship during this dreadful uproar, “the sails touch the clouds, while the keel strikes the ground." "Nubila tanguntur velis, et terra carinâ.” This image of dashing water at the stars, Sir Richard Blackmore has produced in colours truly ridiculous. Describing spouting whales in his Prince Arthur, he makes the following comparison: "Like some prodigious water engine made To play on heaven, if fire should heaven invade." (1) Speaking of the first, he says, "Tollimur in cœlum curvato gurgite, et iidem Of the other, "Attollitque globos flammarum, et sidera lambit." |