Simile. 10. Simile. Prick forth the airy knights; with feats of arms Others, with vast Typhœand rage more fell, With conquest, felt th' envenomed robe; and tore, Into th' Euboic sea.-Book II., Paradise Lost. At Olympia, in Greece, were celebrated, every fifth year, the Olympian Games, in which were included foot and horse races, chariot races, wrestling, leaping, boxing, etc. To these Milton first likens the sports of the angels. The Pythian Games, similar to the Olympian, were celebrated in honor of Apollo, at Delphi. An ancient superstition, that every great war is preceded by such omens in the skies. d Typho'an, from Ty pho'e us, a fabled monstrous giant, who warred against the gods. His stature reached the sky; fire flashed from his eyes; flame and storm rushed from his mouth; and with loud hissing cries he hurled glowing rocks against heaven. This fable, however, is believed to be merely a personification of storms and volcanic eruptions. e Al ci'dēs, a name of Hercules. Hercules conquered the king of Œ eha'lia; after which, maddened by an envenomed robe which he had been induced to put on, he threw Li'ehas, the bearer of it, into the sea; and in his rage tore up the pines by their roots, etc. When these allusions are understood, the similes which Milton bases on them are seen to be very forcible. Milton abounds in classical allusions. (See Allusions, p. 128.) LESSON XXXVIII. BEAUTIFUL AND APPROPRIATE SIMILES. 1. ALTHOUGH there is little resemblance between fraternal concord and precious ointment, yet how successfully are they compared, with respect to the impression they make, in the following language of the Psalmist : I. FRATERNAL CONCORD. "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity'10! It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard,—even Aaron's beard; that went down to the skirts of his garment."Psalm cxxxiii. 2. The following will illustrate the principle that it heightens the beauty of the comparison to discover that the object to which a resemblance is traced is naturally suggested: II. THE MINDS OF THE AGED. "The minds of the aged are like the tombs to which they are approaching; where, though the brass and the marble. remain, yet the inscriptions are effaced by time, and the imagery has mouldered away." This comparison is strikingly beautiful. The thought to be illustrated-"the minds of the aged"—is in itself affecting; the transition is easy and natural" to the tombs which they are approaching;" and the imagery brought up is in harmony with our feelings. 3. In the following two similes, so frequently quoted, Viola, disguised as a page, and feigning to speak of another, describes to the duke her own hidden love for him, and the effect of its concealment: III. CONCEALED LOVE. "She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, She sat like patience on a monument, Smiling at grief."-SHAKSPEARE'S 12th Night. 4. In the following beautiful simile from Parnel's Hermit, a pious mind, agitated with doubts, is compared to a calm lake disturbed by a falling stone. IV. PIETY AGITATED WITH DOUBTS. "A life so sacred', such serene repose', Seem'd heaven itself, till one suggestion rose',- 5. "So, when a smooth expanse receives impressed Simile. Down bend the banks', the trees depending grow', Simile. But if a stone the gentle sea divide, And glimmering fragments of a broken sun, 6. The following, which is at the conclusion of Irving's sketch of the life and character of King Philip, is very happily adapted to excite in the mind of the student of history a feeling of compassionate regret at the miserable and untimely fall of the last king of the Wampanoags: 66 He lived a wanderer and a fugitive in his native land, and went down, like a lonely bark foundering amid darkness and tempest, without a pitying eye to weep his fall, or a friendly hand to record his struggle." 7. In the following, in which Julia likens the effect of checking her love for Proteus to that of damming up the current's course, the effect of the simile is to place her love in a very strong point of view. 8. Simile. 9. V. LOVE RESTRAINED. "Lucetta. I do not seek to quench your love's hot But qualify the fire's extreme rage, Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason. [fire'; "Julia. The more thou dam'st it up', the more it burns' : The current, that with gentle murmur glides, Thou know'st, being stopped, impatiently doth rage; He makes sweet music with the enameled stones, He overtaketh in his pilgrimage; And so by many winding ways he strays, "Then let me go, and hinder not my course: s. I'll be as patient as a gentle stream, And make a pastime of each weary step, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act II., Scene 7. 10. In Cheever's Lectures on the Pilgrim's Progress there is a simile in which the movements of Bunyan's soul, while he was writing that splendid allegory, are compared to a lonely bark in mid-ocean, tossed by the hurricane, and driven by the tempest, but finally, amid alternating storms and sunshine, making, in safety, the harbor of rest. Were it not that the simile is clearly expressed at the beginning, the extract would be an allegory. VI. THE MOVEMENTS OF BUNYAN'S SOUL. [Simile founded upon the Figure of Vision.] 11. "You follow, with intense interest, the movements of Bunyan's soul. You see a lonely bark driving across the ocean in a hurricane. By the flashes of the lightning you can just discern her through the darkness, plunging and laboring fearfully in the midnight tempest, and you think that all is lost; but there, again, you behold her in the quiet sunshine; or the moon and the stars look down upon her, as the wind breathes softly: or in a fresh and favorable gale she flies across the rolling waters. 12. "Now it is clouds, and rain, and hail, and rattling thunder; storms coming down as sudden, almost, as the lightning; and now again her white sails glitter in heaven's light, like an albatross in the spotless horizon. The last glimpse you catch of her, she is gloriously entering the harbor, the haven of eternal rest; yea, you see her like a star, that in the morning of eternity dies into the light of heaven. 13. "Can there be any thing more interesting than thus to follow the perilous course of an immortal soul, from danger to safety, from conflict to victory, from temptation to triumph, from suffering to blessedness, from the city of Destruction to the city of God!" 14. Byron, in describing Henry Kirke White, an English poet of great promise, whose death, in 1806, at the early age of twenty-one, was occasioned by excessive devotion to study, uses one of the most beautiful and touching comparisons that was ever penned : VII. DEATH OF HENRY KIRKE WHITE. 15. Unhappy White! while life was in its spring, 16. Oh! what a noble heart was here undone, 17. (So the struck eagle, stretched upon the plain, No more through rolling clouds to soar again, View'd his own feather on the fatal dart, Simile. And winged the shaft that quiver'd in his heart; From English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. 18. We close these extracts, which might easily be extended to volumes, with Addison's beautiful description of Marlborough in battle,-one of the most sublime similes ever penned.b 19. VIII. MARLBOROUGH IN BATTLE. [Battle of Blenheim, 1704: see p. 35, and also p. 156.] ""Twas then great Marlb'rough's mighty soul was That in the shock of charging hosts, unmoved, In peaceful thought the field of death surveyed, |