I had intended sending you a paper on Bishop Taylor's _Similes_, with
Illustrative Notes on some Passages in his Works; but I soon found that
your utmost indulgence could not afford me a tithe of {535} the space I
would require. Instead, therefore, send you an illustration of a single
simile, as it is short, and not the least curious in the lot:
"All _vertuous women_, _like tortoises_, carry their house on their
heads, and their chappel in their heart, and their danger in their eye,
and their souls in their hands, and God in all their actions."--_Life
of Christ_, Part I. s. ii. 4.
"_Phidias made the statue of Venus at Elis with one foot upon the shell
of a tortoise_, to signify two great duties of a virtuous woman, which
are to keep home and be silent."--_Human Prudence_, by W. De Britaine,
12th edit.: Dublin, 1726, 12mo., p. 134.
"Vertuous women should keep house, and 'twas well performed and ordered
by the Greeks:
' . . . mulier ne qua in publicum
Spectandam se sine arbitro praebeat viro:'
Which made Phidias, belike, at Elis paint _Venus treading on a
tortoise_: a symbole of women's silence and housekeeping.... I know not
what philosopher he was, that would have women come but thrice abroad
all their time, to be _baptized_, _married_, _and buried_; but he was
too straitlaced."--Burton's _Anat. Mel._, part iii. sec. 3. mem. 4.
subs. 2.
"_Apelles us'd to paint a good housewife upon a snayl_; which intimated
that she should be as slow from gadding abroad, and when she went she
shold carry her house upon her back: that is, she shold make all sure
at home. Now, to a good housewife, her house shold be as the sphere to
a star (I do not mean a _wandring_ star), wherin she shold twinckle as
a star in its orb."--Howell's _Parly of Beasts_: Lond. 1660, p. 58.
The last passage reminds us of the fine lines of Donne (addressed to _both_
sexes):
"Be then thine own home, and in thyself dwell;
Inn anywhere;
And seeing the _snail_, which everywhere doth roam,
Carrying his own home still, still is at home,
Follow (for he is easy-paced) this _snail_:
Be thine own palace, or the world's thy jail."