whether there be any qualities in the subject to which these attributes can with justice and perspicuity be applied. Of exuberance of metaphor I shall produce one example.

Men must acquire a very peculiar and strong habit of turning their eye inwards, in order to explore the interior regions and recesses of the mind, the hollow caverns of deep thought, the private seats of fancy, and the wastes and wildernesses, as well as the more fruitful and cultivated tracts of this obscure climate.-Shaftesbury's Miscellaneous Reflections.

Here the author, having determined to represent the human mind under the metaphor of a country, revolves in his thoughts the various objects which might be found in a country, but has never dreamt of considering whether there be any common points of resemblance between those subjects of his figure. Hence the strange parade he makes with regions, recesses, hollow caverns, private seats, wastes, wildernesses, fruitful and cultivated tracts; terms which, though they have an appropriate meaning as applied to a country, have no definite signification. when applied to mind. Some objects may, without impropriety, be alluded to in a cursory manner, though they will become ridiculous by being too long tortured in a figure or trope. Thus, notwithstanding the impropriety of the passage now quoted from Shaftesbury, there is nothing reprehensible in the following distich, which contains a metaphor of the same nature and origin.

Farewell, for clearer ken design'd,
The dim-discover'd tracts of mind.

Collins.

14*

ALLEGORY.

AN allegory may be considered as a protracted metaphor. It consists in representing one subject by another analogous to it; the subject thus represented is not formally mentioned, but we are left to discover it by reflection; and this furnishes a very pleasant exercise to our faculties.

There cannot be a finer or more correct allegory than the following, in which the Jewish nation is represented under the symbol of a vineyard.

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. Why hast thou then 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, and the vineyard which thy right hand hath planted, and the branch that thou madest strong for thyself.-Psalms.

Here we discover no circumstance that does not strictly agree with a vine; while, at the same time, the whole fits in happily with the Jewish state represented by this figure. It is the principal requisite in the conduct of an allegory, that the figurative and the literal meaning be not inconsistently mingled. If, instead of describing the vine as wasted by the boar out of the wood, and devoured by the wild beast of the field, the psalmist had said that it was afflicted by the heathens, or overcome by enemies, this would have ruined the allegory, and produced the same incoherence that has been remarked

in those metaphors in which the figurative and literal senses are confounded. In an allegory, as well as a metaphor, such terms ought to be chosen as are literally applicable to the representative subject; nor ought any circumstance to be added which is not proper to that subject, however justly it may apply to the principal, either in a figurative or proper sense. Our view must never waver between the type and the antitype. Most of the rules which have been delivered with regard to metaphors may also be applied to allegories, on account of the affinity which those figures bear to each other. The only material difference between them, besides the one being generally short, and the other more prolonged, is, that a metaphor always explains itself by the words which are connected with it in their proper and natural meaning. When I say, "Wallace was a thunderbolt of war," "in peace Fingal was the gale of spring," the thunderbolt of war, and the gale of spring, are sufficiently interpreted by the mention of Wallace and Fingal. But an allegory may be allowed to stand more unconnected with the literal meaning; the interpretation is not so directly pointed out, but is left to our own discovery.

Allegories were a favourite method of delivering instruction in ancient times; for what we call fables or parables are no other than allegories; and those fables are to be found among the earliest productions of literature. They represent the dispositions of men by words and actions attributed to beasts and inanimate objects; and what we call the moral, is the simple meaning of the allegory. An enigma or riddle is also a figure of this kind one thing is imaged by another, but purposely rendered obscure by being involved in a complication of circumstances. Where a riddle is not intended, it is always a fault in an allegory to be too dark. The meaning should be easily seen through the figure by which it is shadowed. 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 open, nor to cover it too

closely, has ever been found a subject of great nicety; and in allegorical compositions of any length, few writers have succeeded.

An allegory is in every respect similar to a hieroglyphical painting, excepting only that words are used. instead of colours. Their effects are precisely the same. A hieroglyphic raises two images in the mind; one seen, which represents one not seen. The same is the case with an allegory: the representative subject is described; and the resemblance leads us to apply the description to the subject represented.

Nothing affords greater pleasure than this figure, when the representative subject bears a strong analogy, in all its circumstances, to that which is represented; but the choice is seldom so fortunate, the analogy being generally so faint and obscure as to puzzle instead of pleasing. An allegory is still more difficult in painting than in writing: the former can shew no resemblance but what appears to the eye; whereas the latter has many other resources.

For the further illustration of the nature of allegory, I shall subjoin two examples.

My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill and he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a wine-press therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? And now, go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down: and I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant.-Isaiah.

Wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss,
But cheerly seek how to redress their harms.
What though the mast be now blown overboard,
The cable broke, the holding anchor lost,
And half our sailors swallow'd in the flood?

Yet lives our pilot still. Is't meet that he
Should leave the helm, and, like a fearful lad,

With tearful eyes add water to the sea,

And give more strength to that which hath too much;
While in his moan the ship splits on the rock,

Which industry and courage might have saved?--Shakspeare.

THE CONCISE AND THE DIFFUSE STYLE.

ARISTOTLE has long ago delivered a very decided opinion as to the inutility of entering into any minute disquisition respecting the different species of style; and, according to this high authority, to say that style ought to be sweet or magnificent, is not more to the purpose than to say that it ought to be temperate or liberal, or to display any other of the moral virtues. Nor has the importance of such discussions been more highly estimated by another learned writer, who belongs to a very recent era. "When," says Mr. Knight, "we find every florid and affected rhetorician, who has successively contributed to the corruption of Greek, Latin, and English eloquence, applauding, in quaint phraseology and epigrammatic point, the simple purity of Xenophon, Cæsar, and Swift, and condemning in others the very style which he employs, we can scarcely believe that he knew, at the time of writing, how widely the taste, which he had acquired by habit, differed from the judgment which he exercised under the influence of authority."* These strictures are by no means encouraging: but we must nevertheless make an attempt to extract some degree of practical utility from an investigation of the different characters of style; and to fail

Knight's Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste.