(of course "similes" is an English word: the author of a recent '_Essay
on Magna Charta_' has been _learned_ enough to write it "similae," for
which original piece of Latinity let him be congratulated; I safely
follow Johnson, who would have roared like a lion at "similia;" and,
though Shakspeare does write it "similies," it may stoutly be contended
that this is of mixed metal, and that Matthew Prior's "similes" is the
purer sample: all the above being a praiseworthy parenthesis.)
The similes of Scripture, then, were to have been demonstrated apt and
happy: for there is indeed both majesty, and loveliness, and propriety,
and strict resemblance in them. "As a rolling thing before the
whirlwind,"--"as when a standard-bearer fainteth"--"as the rushing of
mighty waters,"--"as gleaning grapes when the vintage is done,"--"as a
dream,"--"as the morning dew,"--"as"--but the whole book is a garden of
similitudes; they are "like the sand upon the sea-shore for multitude."
It is, however, too true, that often-times the baldness of translation
deprives poetry, Eastern especially, of its fervour, its glow, its gush,
and blush of beauty: to quote Aristotle's example, it too frequently
converts the rosy-fingered Morn into the red-fisted; and so the poetry
of dawning-day, with its dew-dropped flowers, its healthy refreshment,
its "rosy-fingers" drawing aside the star-spangled curtain of night,
falls at once into the low notion of a foggy morning, and is suggestive
only of red-fisted Abigails struggling continuously with the deposits of
a London atmosphere. In like manner, (for all this has not been an
episode beside the purpose,) many a roughly rendered similitude of
Scripture might be advantageously vindicated; local diversities and
Orientalisms might be explained in such a treatise: for example, in the
'_Canticles_,' the "beloved among the sons," is compared with an
apple-tree among the trees of the wood:" now, amongst us, an apple-tree
is stunted and unsightly, and always degenerates in a wood; whereas the
Eastern apple-tree, probably one of the citron class, (to be more
correct,) may be a magnificent monarch of the forest. "Camphire," to a
Western mind, is not suggestive of the sweetest perfume, and perhaps
the word may be amended into the marginal "cypress," or cedar, or some
other: as "a bottle in the smoke," loses its propriety for an image,
until shown to be a wine-skin. "Who is this that cometh out of the
wilderness, like pillars of smoke?"--probably intending the
swiftly-rushing columns of _sand_ flying on the wings of the whirlwind.
"Thine eyes are like the fish-pools in Heshbon," might well be softened
into fountains--tearful, calm, resplendent, and rejoicing; and in
showing the poetic fitness of comparing the bride to a landscape, it
might clearly be set out how emblematic of Jewish millennial prosperity
and of Christian universality, that bride was; while comparisons of a
like un-European imagery might be taken from other Eastern poets, who
will not scruple to compare that rare beauty, a straight Grecian nose,
with a tower, and admire above all things the Cleopatra-coloured hair
which they call purple, and we auburn. Very much might be done in this
vein of literature, but it must be by a man at once an Oriental scholar
and a natural poet: the idioms of ancient and modern times should be
more considered, and something of apologetic explanation offered to an
English ear for phrases such as "the mountains skipping like rams," "the
horse swallowing the ground with fierceness," and represented as being
afraid as a grasshopper." A thousand like instances could be displayed
with little searching; let the above be taken as they are meant, for
good, and as of zeal for showing the best of books to the best
advantage: but it will appear that this essay trenches on the former one
so slenderly hinted at, as '_The Wisdom of Revision_,' therefore has
been stated too much at length already. Let it then rest on the shelf
till a better season. For this time, good reader, I, following up the
object of self-relieving, thank you for your patience, and will turn to
other themes of a more sublunary aspect.
* * * * *
One of the most natural and indigenous productions of a true author's
mind, is, by common consent, an epic poem: verily, a wearisome,
unnecessary, unfashionable bit of writing. Nevertheless, let my candour
humbly acknowledge that, for the larger canticle of two mortal days, I
was brooding over, and diligently brewing up, a right happy, capital,
and noble-minded thesis, no other than