cannot be so carried forward, the advantage is not gained. The
annexed sonnet, by Coleridge, is defective from this cause:

"As when a child, on some long winter's night,
Affrighted, clinging to its grandam's knees,
With eager wond'ring and perturb'd delight
Listens strange tales of fearful dark decrees,
Mutter'd to wretch by necromantic spell;
Or of those hags who at the witching time
Of murky midnight, ride the air sublime,
And mingle foul embrace with fiends of hell;
Cold horror drinks its blood! Anon the tear
More gentle starts, to hear the beldame tell
Of pretty babes, that lov'd each other dear,
Murder'd by cruel uncle's mandate fell:
Ev'n such the shiv'ring joys thy tones impart,
Ev'n so, thou, Siddons, meltest my sad heart."

Sec. 40. Here, from the lapse of time and accumulation of circumstances,
the first part of the comparison is forgotten before its application
is reached, and requires re-reading. Had the main idea been first
mentioned, less effort would have been required to retain it, and to
modify the conception of it into harmony with the comparison, than to
remember the comparison, and refer back to its successive features for
help in forming the final image.

Sec. 41. The superiority of the Metaphor to the Simile is ascribed by Dr.
Whately to the fact that "all men are more gratified at catching the
resemblance for themselves, than in having it pointed out to them." But
after what has been said, the great economy it achieves will seem the
more probable cause. Lear's exclamation--

"Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend,"

would lose part of its effect were it changed into--

"Ingratitude! thou fiend with heart like marble;"

and the loss would result partly from the position of the simile and
partly from the extra number of words required. When the comparison is
an involved one, the greater force of the metaphor, consequent on its
greater brevity, becomes much more conspicuous. If, drawing an analogy
between mental and physical phenomena, we say, "As, in passing through
the crystal, beams of white light are decomposed into the colours of the
rainbow; so, in traversing the soul of the poet, the colourless rays of
truth are transformed into brightly tinted poetry"; it is clear that
in receiving the double set of words expressing the two halves of the
comparison, and in carrying the one half to the other, considerable
attention is