With bootlefs labour swim against the tide, And spend her strength with over-matching waves. Ah! hark, the fatal followers do purfue. And I am faint and cannot fly their fury. The fands are number'd that make up my life;ì Here must I stay, and here my life muft end. Third part Henry VI. att 1. fc.6. Far less is a man difpofed to fimiles who is not only defeated in a pitch'd battle, but lies at the point of death mortally wounded. Warwick. My mangled body fhews, My blood, my want of strength, my fick heart fhews, That I muft yield my body to the earth, And, by my fall, the conqueft to my foe, Thus yields the cedar to the ax's edge, tree, And kept low fhrubs from winter's pow'rful wind. Third part Henry VI. alt 5. Jc. 3. Queen Katharine, deferted by the King and in the deepeft affliction upon her divorce, could not be difpofed to any fallies of imagination and for that reafon, the fol lowing fimile, however beautiful in the mouth of a spectator, is fcarce proper in her own. I am the most unhappy woman living, King Henry VIII. a&t 3. Sc. t. Similes thus unfeasonably introduced, are finely ridiculed in the Rebearfal: Bayes. Now here fhe muft make a fimile. Smith. Where's the neceffity of that, Mr Bayes? Bayes. Because fhe's furpris'd; that's a general rule; you must ever make a fimile when you are furprised; 'tis a new way of writing. ? ? A comparison is not always faultlefs, even where it is properly introduced. I have endeavoured above to give a general view of the different ends to which a comparison may contribute. A comparison, like other human productions, may fall fhort of its end; and of this defect inftances are not Ε VOL. III. rare rare even among good writers. To complete the present fubject, it will be neceffary to make fome obfervations upon fuch faulty comparisons. I begin with obferving, that nothing can be more erroneous than to inftitute a comparison too faint: a diftant refemblance or contraft, fatigues the mind with its obfcurity instead of amufing it, and tends not to fulfil any one end of a comparifon. The following fimiles feem to la bour under this defect: Albus ut obfcuro deterget nubila cœlo Molli, Plance, mero. Horace, Carm. l. 1. ode Medio dux agmine Turnus Vertitur arma tenens, et toto vertice fupra eft, Eneid ix. 28. Talibus orabat, talefque miferrima fletus Fletibus, Fletibus, aut voces ullas tractabilis auditov K. Rich. Give me the crown.- Here, coufin, feize the crown, Here, on this fide, my hand; on that fide, thine. Drinking my griefs, whilft you mount up on high. King John. Oh! Coufin, thou art come to fet mine eye; The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burnt; And all the fhrowds wherewith my life fhould fail, Are turned to one thread, one little hair: My heart hath one poor ftring to stay it by, King John, act 5. fc. 10. York. My uncles both are flain in refcuing me: And all my followers, to the eager foe Turn back, and fly like fhips before the wind, Third Part Henry VI. at 1. fc. 6. The latter of the two fimiles is good. The former, because of the faintness of the refemblance, produces no good effect, and crowds the narration with an useless image. The next error I fhall mention is a capital one. In an epic poem, or in any elevated fubject, a writer ought to avoid raifing a fimile upon a low image, which never fails to bring down the principal subject. In general, it is a rule, that a grand object ought never to be refembled to one that is diminutive, however delicate the refemblance may be. It is the peculiar character of |