makes a noise." The expression "a sighing oak" may either be treated as a Personification (in which case the oak is regarded as a Dryad), or else as an exaggerated and terse way of expressing not a simile, but a similarity: thus there is no metaphor in the "fleecy flood" applied to "snow :" it is merely a short way of saying that "snow" resembles "fleece in color. Just so "a sighing oak" may be considered as a short exaggeration for "an oak the sound of whose leaves resembles sighing." It is almost as unnecessary to explain in the one case by saying, “as a person sighs," etc., as it would be in the other to explain by saying, "as a sheep has fleece," "Fleece" presupposes sheep" little more than “ sigh" presupposes "person." In some cases the exaggeration is evident, and it is clear there is no metaphor. Thus, in

etc.

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Thy voice is thunder, but thy looks are humble,

the meaning is merely, "thy voice is as loud and terrible as thunder." Again, –

Every man's conscience is a thousand swords
To fight against that bloody homicide.

Richard III.

Or,

But he, poor soul, by your first order died,
And that a winged Mercury did bear;
Some tardy cripple bore the countermand,
That came too lag to see him buried.

ть.

In the last passage one messenger is said to be as swift as Mercury, and the other as slow as a cripple. This is Hyperbole, and not Metaphor. For there is no similarity of relations it is an exaggeration of degree.

Sometimes it is not easy to see whether there is a phor or not. Take an instance: "The earth drank blood." Now here there is either a very strong Pers tion, or else there is only the slightest possible Me and the context must determine for us which is th Thus, if the context described Gessler dying on the lan he had oppressed, Switzerland might be represented dictively draining the life-blood of her oppressor, an might be a distinct and vivid Personification. But in cases the Personification would be weak or non-existen the expression would be no more than a way of saying the blood oozed into the earth almost as rapidly as disappears when drunk up by man or beast. There be little more Metaphor in this than in saying "a s imbibes water."

88. Confusions of Similarity. There is no Metaph saying that "a man has a cold or warm heart," or "a head," and in many similar expressions. Easily disting able from genuine metaphors (such as "a stiff-necked ge ation"), these pseudo-metaphors are found in all langua and they indicate an ancient belief that certain moral qual are caused by or identical with certain qualities of the bo organs. We still retain many of these old expressions, use them in a confused manner, with a certain feeling there must be a similarity between cause and effect. T the paleness of cowardice seemed naturally to spring fr "a white liver; "1 "clear reasoning" seems still the natu

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product of a "clear brain;" and, since warmth is genial and fostering, what can be a more natural explanation of a man whose conduct is kind and genial than to say that "he has a warm heart"? So we say of a satirist that "his pen is steeped in gall." An instance of this natural confusion is found in Richard III.'s exhortation to the murderers: :

Your eyes drop mill-stones when fools' eyes drop tears.

Here the murderers are instructed to be hard; and nothing can be more natural than the hyperbole which asserts that the conduct of hard men bears the impress of hardness, and that even their tears are of stone.

89. Good and bad Metaphors. -There are certain laws regulating the formation and employment of Metaphors which should be borne in mind.

(1) A Metaphor must not be used unless it is needed for explanation or vividness, or to throw light upon the thought of the speaker. Thus the speech of the Gardener in "Richard II.,"

Go then, and like an executioner

Cut off the heads of our fast-growing sprays, etc.,

is inappropriate to the character of the speaker, and conveys an allusion instead of an explanation. It illustrates what is familiar by what is unfamiliar, and can only be justified by the fact that the gardener is thinking of the disordered condition of the kingdom of England, and the necessity of a powerful king to repress unruly subjects.

(2) A Metaphor must not enter too much into detail; for every additional detail increases the improbability that the

correspondence of the whole comparison can be sustained. Thus if King Richard (Richard II.) had been content, while musing on the manner in which he could count time by his sighs, to say,

For now hath Time made me his numbering clock,

there would have been little or no offence against taste. But when he continues,

My thoughts are minutes, and with sighs they jar
Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,
Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,

Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
Now, sir, the sound that tells what hour it is

Are clamorous groans which strike upon my heart,
Which is the bell,-

we have an excess of detail which is only justified because it illustrates the character of one who is always "studying to compare," and "hammering out" unnatural comparisons.

Sometimes a single word in a Metaphor will suggest a minute detail far more effectively than a whole sentence would describe it. Take the word liveries in the following:

Right against the Eastern gate,
Where the great sun begins his state,
Robed in flames and amber bright,

The clouds in thousand liveries dight;

where this word suggests a comparison between the colors which the sun bestows upon the attendant clouds and the

1 I have been studying how I may compare
This prison where I live unto the world;

I cannot do it; yet I'll hammer it out.

Richard II.

The

liveries of servants bearing the cognizance of their lord. morning sun, surrounded by the clouds that reflect his rays, is compared to a great king or lord issuing from his palace gate, and accompanied by his attendants, who are clothed in the liveries that he has given them.

The comical effect produced by excessively minute elaboration of a metaphor is well illustrated by the following parody:

Can the quick current of a patriot heart
Thus stagnate in a cold and weedy converse,
Or freeze in tideless inactivity?

No! rather let the fountain of your valor

Spring through each narrow stream of enterprise,
Each petty channel of conducive daring,

Till the full torrent of your foaming wrath
O'erwhelm the flats of sunk hostility!

The Critic.

(3) A Metaphor must not be far-fetched, nor dwell upon the details of a disgusting picture:

Steep'd in the colors of their trade, their daggers
Unmannerly breech'd with gore.

Macbeth.

There is but little, and that far-fetched, similarity between gold lace and blood, or between bloody daggers and breech'd legs. The slightness of the similarity, recalling the greatness of the dissimilarity, disgusts us with the attempted comparison. Language so forced is only appropriate in the mouth of a conscious murderer dissembling guilt.

Of course the same metaphors may be natural in one context and far-fetched in another. For instance, since a tree