Thus much by way of analyzing the two figures, and illustrating the difference between them. In all these instances may be seen, I think, how in a metaphor the intensity and fire of imagination, instead of placing the two parts side by side, melts them down into one homogeneous mass; which mass is both of them and neither of them at the same time; their respective properties being so interwoven and fused together, that those of each may be affirmed of the other.
I have said that Shakespeare uses the Simile in a way somewhat peculiar. This may require some explication.--Homer, Virgil, Dante, Spenser, Milton, and the great Italian poets of the sixteenth century, all deal largely in what may be styled full-drawn similes; that is, similes carefully elaborated through all their parts, these being knit together in a balanced and rounded whole. Here is an instance of what I mean, from _Paradise Lost_, i.:
"As when the potent rod Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day, Wav'd round the coast, up call'd a pitchy cloud Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind, That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung Like night, and darken'd all the land of Nile; So numberless where those bad angels seen Hovering on wing under the cope of Hell, 'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires."
This may be fitly taken as a model specimen of the thing; it is severely classical in style, and is well worthy of the great hand that made it. Here is another, somewhat different in structure, and not easy to beat, from Wordsworth's _Miscellaneous Sonnets_, Part ii.:
"Desponding Father! mark this alter'd bough, So beautiful of late, with sunshine warm'd, Or moist with dews; what more unsightly now, Its blossoms shrivell'd, and its fruit, if form'd, Invisible? yet Spring her genial brow Knits not o'er that discolouring and decay As false to expectation. Nor fret thou At like unlovely process in the May Of human life: a Stripling's graces blow, Fade, and are shed, that from their timely fall (Misdeem it not a cankerous change) may grow Rich mellow bearings, that for thanks shall call."
It may be worth noting, that the first member of this no less beautiful than instructive passage contains one metaphor,--"Spring her genial brow knits not"; and the second two,--"in the May of human life," and, "a Stripling's graces blow, fade, and are shed." Herein it differs from the preceding instance; but I take it to be none the worse for that.