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' ἀεροειδὲς ἀνὴρ ἴδεν ὀφθαλμοῖσιν For as a watchman from some rock on high 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 similies 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: Ωσε λέων ἐχάρη μεγάλῳ ἐπὶ σώματι κύρσας. Εὑρὼν ἢ ἔλαφον κεραόν, ἢ ἄγριον αἴγα, &c. So joys the lion, if a branching deer The Mantuan bard in the tenth book of the Eneid, applies the same simile to Mezentius, when he beholds Acron in the battle. Impastus stabula alta leo ceu sæpe peragrans Ora cruor. Then as a hungry lion, who beholds A gamesome goat who frisks about the folds, paws: He fills his famish'd maw, his mouth runs o'er DRYDEN. 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 XVII. 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. Máısa dì ✯ Υπερβολὴ ψυχρότατον 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 intacta segetis per summa volaret This elegant author, we are afraid, has upon some other occasions degenerated into the frigid, in straining to improve upon his great master. Homer 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, 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. Nevertheless Virgil adopts the description, and adds to its extravagance. 1 Incubuere muri, totumque à sedibus imis Una Eurusque Notusque ruunt, creberque procellis • Africus. Here the winds not only blow together, but they turn the whole body of the ocean topsy turvey. East, West, and South, engage with furious sweep, The North wind, however, is still more mischievous. Stridens aquilone procella Velum adversa ferit, fluctusque ad sidera tollit. The motion of the sea between Scyllaand Charyb dis is still more magnified; and Etna is exhibited as throwing out volumes of flame, which brush the stars*. 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 * Speaking of the first, he says, Tollimur in cælum curvato gurgite, et iidem Of the other, Autollitque globos flammarum, esidera lumbit. FF 2 injuring 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 alia magis via in xana itur. If the chaste Virgil has thus trespassed upon poetical probability, what can we expect from Lucan but Hyperboles even more ridiculously extravagant? He represents the winds in contest, the sea in suspence, 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 carina. 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 heav'n, if fire should heav'n invade. The great fault in all these instances is a deviation from propriety, owing to the erroneous judgment of the writer, who, endeavouring to captivate the admiration with novelty, very often shocks the understanding with extravagance. Of this nature is the whole description of the Cyclops, both in the Odyssey of Homer and in the Æneid of Virgil. It must be owned however that the Latin Poet with all his merit is more apt than his great original to dazzle us |