------------ Me tabulâ sacer Votivâ paries indicat uvida Suspendisse potenti Vestimenta maris Deo. _Carm. l. 1. ode 5._
Phœbus volentem prælia me loqui, Victas et urbes, increpuit lyrâ: Ne parva Tyrrhenum per æquor Vela darem. _Carm. l. 4. ode 15._
_Queen._ Great Lords, wise men ne’er sit and wail their loss, But chearly 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 sav’d? Ah, what a shame! ah, what a fault were this! _Third Part Henry VI. act 5. sc. 5._
_Oroonoko._ Ha! thou hast rous’d The lion in his den, he stalks abroad And the wide forest trembles at his roar. I find the danger now. _Oroonoko, act 3. sc. 2._
The rules that govern metaphors and allegories, are of two kinds: those of the first kind concern the construction of a metaphor or allegory, and ascertain what are perfect and what are faulty: those of the other kind concern the propriety or impropriety of introduction, in what circumstances these figures may be admitted, and in what circumstances they are out of place. I begin with rules of the first kind; some of which coincide with those already given with respect to similes; some are peculiar to metaphors and allegories.
And in the first place, it has been observed, that a simile cannot be agreeable where the resemblance is either too strong or too faint. This holds equally in a metaphor and allegory; and the reason is the same in all. In the following instances, the resemblance is too faint to be agreeable.
_Malcolm._---- But there’s no bottom, none, In my voluptuousness: your wives, your daughters, Your matrons, and your maids, could not fill up The cistern of my lust. _Macbeth, act 4. sc. 4._
The best way to judge of this metaphor, is to convert it into a simile; which would be bad, because there is scarce any resemblance betwixt lust and a cistern, or betwixt enormous lust and a large cistern.