tions of affection, and hardened in unrelenting hatred against us. Dr YOUNG, who abounds with as great images as perhaps ever entered an human mind, and who has conducted many of them with amazing fuccefs, fometimes fails in his Metaphors. The following passages feem to me inconteftible evidences. Thro' chinks, ftil'd organs, dim life peeps at light; Death bursts th' involving cloud, and all is day In the first line we are reprefented as peeping through chinks at the world of glory; but, instead of carrying on the Metaphor, the Poet tells us in the next verfe, that it is by the difperfion of an involving cloud, and not by the removal of a partition, as he ought to have faid, that we enter into the enjoyment of celestial day. And again, One eye on Death, and one full fix'd on Heav'n, Becomes a mortal, and immortal man f. But who, but he who has a diforder in his sight, can at the same time have one eye full fixed on one object, and the other eye upon another? And further, Together fome unhappy rivals feize, Loud croaks the Raven of the Law, and fmiles . But who ever heard of a raven's finiling? And how unfortunate is it that what cannot agree with Night Thoughts, book iii. D 3. Ib. b.v. with a raven in its original, fhould be made to agree with it in a metaphorical state? 66 Archbishop TILLOTSON, fpeaking of that malignant fpirit in mankind, which is fond of dif cerning spots in the brightest characters, remarks, "that when perfons of this caft have heard men"tioned any virtue in their neighbour, it is well "if to balance the matter, and fet things even, they do not clap fome infirmity or fault into "the other scale, that fo the enemy may not go "off with flying colours *." We have the ideas of cafting a weight into a feale, and a man's coming in triumph from a field of battle, very injudiciously blended together, for what, conceivable affinity is there between a pair of scales and flying colours? Mr ADDISON, one of the happiest masters of Metaphor that perhaps ever wrote, has fometimes failed even in this point of excellency. "There is not, fays he, a single view of human "nature which is not fufficient to extinguish the " feeds of pride.” "In this passage," fays Mr MELMOTH, who both recites and blames it, "he " evidently unites images together which have "no connection with each other. When a feed "has loft its power of vegetation, I might, in " a metaphorical fenfe, fay, it is extinguished, "but when in the fame fenfe I call that difposi❝tion of the heart which produces pride, the "feed of that pafsion, I cannot, without introducing Sermon against Evil-speaking, Vol. iv. page 433. Octavo edition. "ducing a confusion of ideas, apply any word "to feed, but what corresponds with its real properties and circumstances. A judicious Writer, fays the fame Mr MELMOTH *, will ob"ferve an impropriety in one of the late Essays "of the fame inimitable Author (Mr ADDISON) "where he tells us, that Women were formed to 66 temper mankind, not to fet an edge upon their "minds, and blow up in them those passions "which are too apt to rife of their own accord." How great is the confusion occasioned by the afsociation of fuch different ideas, as, fetting an edge upon the mind, and blowing up our paffions, in the same sentence ! 66 Nay, not CICERO himself is exempted, with all his incomparable talents, from incoherence of Metaphor. What think we of fuch a passage as the following?" For as when I walk in the fun, though I walk for another end, it is fo ordered by nature that I receive fome change in my complexion; fo when I more carefully read "those books at Mifenum, for I had fcarce time "to do it at Rome, I found my own composi❝tion to be coloured by their strains +." What congruity is there between being coloured and ftrains? and how unhappily are the fenfes of feeing and bearing confounded together? D 4 ☛ FITZ-OSBORNE's Letters, vol. ii. page 55. The Ut, cum in fole ambulem, etiamfi ob aliam caufam ambulem, fieri natura tamen, ut colorer; fic cum iftos libros ad Misenum (nam Romæ vix licet) ftudiofius legerim, sentio Orationem meam illorum cantu quafi colorari. CICER. de Orat. lib. ii. § 14, The fame incoherence of Metaphors we may observe in another passage from the fame celebrated Writer: "O noble stock !" meaning the family of the SCIPIOS; " and as scions of various inds of trees may be ingrafted into one ftock, 66 fo in this family the wifdom of multitudes was "inferted and illuminated *." Inferted perfectly accords with stock and trees; but illuminated is undoubtedly a foreign and improper idea, and belongs to a very different class of images. § 13. Having freely pointed out fome of the slips of the greatest Writers in their Metaphors, and fhewn you that what HORACE fays of HOMER may be applied to them, that even HOMER's mufe will fometimes nod †, I cannot prevail upon myfelf to quit the fubject, without felecting from the Authors, whose spots I have discovered, fome of their charming Metaphors, that I may not seem to take a pleasure in detecting their faults, and leaving the instances of them unatoned with examples of their incomparable beauties. The fame Dr DODDRIDGE, whom we have cenfured for incoherent Metaphors, gives us the following uniform and delightful Metaphors in his practical improvement of Acts viii. 4. "Therefore they "that were fcattered abroad, went every where "preaching O generofam ftirpem, & tanquam in unam arborem plura genera, fic in iftam domum multorum infitam, atque illuminatum fapientiam. CICER. de claris Oratoribus, $58. Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus. HORAT. de Arte Poet. ver. 359 preaching the word. In mercy, fays he, there"fore to the Churches, and even to themselves, "whofe trueft happiness was connected with "their usefulness, were they, like fo many clouds "of Heaven, driven different ways by the wind ❝of perfecution, that fo they might empty them- felves in fruitful showers on the feveral tracts of land, through which they went preaching "the Gofpel." What a fmooth continuance is here of the Metaphor firft afsumed! and what a juft and pleasing resemblance do we find throughout the whole passage between the Missionaries of the Gospel, and the clouds of Heaven diftiling their precious blessings upon the earth! What an harmony of Metaphors, from first to laft, is there in the following lines of Dr YOUNG! Eternity's vaft ocean lies before thee..> Give thy mind fea-room; keep it wide of earth, . Weigh anchor; fpread thy fail; call ev'ry wind; What consistent as well as exprefsive Metaphors are contained in the following passage of Archbishop TILLOTSON! "Transubstantiation, fays he, is like a milftone hung about the "neck of Popery, which will sink it at the last. "And though some of their greatest Wits have "undertaken the defence of it in great volumes, " yet YOUNG's Night Thoughts, book vii, |