or is the Apologue very well suited to the place:
the former, I believe, Shakespeare never uses; and his most
conspicuous instance of the latter, in fact the only one that occurs
to me, is that of the Belly and the Members, so quaintly delivered to
the insurgent people by the juicy old Menenius in the first scene of
_Coriolanus_. But, though Shakespeare largely uses all the other
figures of speech, I shall draw most of what I have to say of his
style in this respect, under the two heads of Simile and Metaphor,
since all that can properly be called imagery is resolvable into
these. Shakespeare uses both a great deal, but the Simile in a way
somewhat peculiar: in fact, as it is commonly used by other poets, he
does not seem to have been very fond of it; and when he admits it, he
generally uses it in the most informal way possible. But, first, at
the risk of seeming pedantic, I will try to make some analysis of the
two figures in question.

Every student knows that the Simile may be regarded as an expanded
Metaphor, or the Metaphor as a condensed Simile. Which implies that
the Metaphor admits of greater brevity. What, then, is the difference?

Now a simile, as the name imports, is a comparison of two or more
things, more or less unlike in themselves, for the purpose of
illustration. The thing illustrated and the thing that illustrates
are, so to speak, laid alongside each other, that the less known may
be made more intelligible by the light of that which is known better.
Here the two parts are kept quite distinct, and a sort of parallel run
between them. And the actions or the qualities of the two things stand
apart, each on their own side of the parallel, those of neither being
ascribed to the other. In a metaphor, on the other hand, the two
parts, instead of lying side by side, are drawn together and
incorporated into one. The idea and the image, the thought and the
illustration, are not kept distinct, but the idea is incarnated in the
image, so that the image bears the same relation to the idea as the
body does to the soul. In other words, the two parts are completely
identified, their qualities interfused and interpenetrating, so that
they become one. Thus a metaphor proceeds by ascribing to a given
object certain actions or qualities which are not literally true of
that object, and which have in reference to it only the truth of
analogy.

To illustrate this. When, in his sonnet composed on Westminster
Bridge, Word