mixture of metaphorical ideas. Neither can this other paffage be altogether vindicated:

Ah! quanta laboras in Charybdi,
Digne, puer, meliore flamma!

Where a whirlpool of water, Charybdis, is faid to be a flame, not good enough for this young man ; meaning, that he was unfortunate in the object of his pallion. Flame is, indeed, become almoft a literal word for the paffion of love; but as it ftill retains, in fome degree, its figurative power, it fhould never have been ufed as fynonymous with water, and mixed with it in the fame metaphor. When mr. Pope (Eloifa to Abelard) fays,

All then is full, poffeffing and poffeft,

No craving void left aking in the breaft;

A void may, metaphorically, be faid to crave; but can a void be faid to ake?

A good rule has been given for examining the propriety of metaphors, when we doubt whether or not they be of the mixed kind; namely, that we fhould try to form a picture upon them, and confider how the parts would agree, and what fort of figure the whole would prefent, when delineated with a pencil. By this means, we fhould become fenfible, whether inconfiftent circumstances were mixed, and a monstrous image thereby produced, as in all thofe faulty inftances I have now been giving; or whether the object was, all along, prefented in one natural and confiftent point of view.

As metaphors ought never to be mixed, fo, in the fixth place, we fhould avoid crouding them together on the fame object. Suppofing each of the metaphors to be preferved diftinct, yet, if they be heaped on one another, they produce a confufion Vol. I. 20

fomewhat of the fame kind with the mixed metaphor. We may judge of this by the following pallage from Horace :

This paffage, though very poetical, is, however, harfh and obfcure; owing to no other caufe but this, that three diftinct metaphors are crouded together, to defcribe the difficulty of Pollio's writing a history of the civil wars. Firft, "Tractas arma uneta cruoribus nondum expiatis;" next, "Opus plenum periculofe alex;" and then, "In"cedis per ignes, fuppofitos dolofo cineri." The mind has difficulty in paffing readily through fo many different views given it, in quick fucceffion, of the fame object.

The only other rule concerning metaphors, which I fhall add, in the feventh place, is, that they be not too far purfued. If the refemblance, on which the figure is founded, be long dwelt upon, and carried into all its minute circumftances, we make an allegory inftead of a metaphor; we tire

Of warm commotions, wrathful jars,
The growing feeds of civil wars
Of double fortune's cruel games,
The fpecious means, the private aims,
And fatal friendships of the guilty great,
Alas! how fatal to the Roman ftate!

Of mighty legions late fubdu'd,
And arms with Latian blood embru'd;
Yet unatoned (a labour vaft!

Doubtful the die, and dire the caft!)

You treat, adventurous, and incautious tread

On fires with faithlefs embers overfpread.. FRANCIS.

the reader, who foon becomes weary of this play of fancy; and we render our difcourfe obfcure. This is called, ftraining a metaphor. Ccwley deals in this to excefs; and to this error is owing, in a great measure, that intricacy and harshness, in his figurative language, which I before remarked. I ord Shaftsbury is fometimes guilty of purfuing his metaphors too far. Fond, to a high degree, of every decoration of ftyle, when once he had hit upon a figure that pleafed him, he was extremely loth to part with it. Thus, in his advice to an author, having taken up a foliloquy, or meditation, under the. metaphor of a proper method of evacuation for an author, he purfues this metaphor through several. pages, under all the forms "of difcharging crudities, "throwing off froth and fcum, bodily operation,taking phyfic, curing indigeftion, giving vent to choler, bile, flatulencies, and tumours ;" till, at last, the idea becomes naufeous. Dr. Young also often trelpaffes in the fame way. The merit, however, of this writer, in figurative language, is great and deferves to be remarked. No writer, ancient or modern, had a stronger imagination than dr. Young, or one more fertile in figures of every kind. His metaphors are often new, and often natural and beautiful. But his imagination was ftrong and rich, rather than delicate and correct. Hence, in his Night thoughts, there prevails an obfcurity and a hardness in his ftyle. The metaphors are frequently too bold and frequently too far purfued; the reader is dazzled rather than enlightened; and kept conftantly on the stretch to keep pace with the author. We may obferve, for inftance, how the following metaphor. is fpun out :

Thy thoughts are vagabond; all outward bound,
Midft fands and rocks, and ftorms, to cruife for pleafure,
If gain'd, dear bonght; and better mifs'd than gain'd.
Fancy and fenfe, from an infected fhore,