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"Dost thou not see my baby at my breast, That sucks the nurse asleep?"

Or, as an instance of both figures together, take the following from King Lear, iv. 3, where the Gentleman describes to Kent the behaviour of Cordelia on hearing of her father's condition:

"You have seen Sunshine and rain at once; her smiles and tears Were like: a better way,—those happy smilets That play'd on her ripe lip seem'd not to know What guests were in her eyes; which parted thence As pearls from diamonds dropp'd."

Here we have two similes, in the first two and last clauses; and also two metaphors, severally conveyed in,—"That play'd on her ripe lip," and, "What guests were in her eyes." Perhaps I ought to add that a simile is sometimes merely suggested or implied; as in these lines from Wordsworth:

"What is glory?—in the socket See how dying tapers fare! What is pride?—a whizzing rocket That would emulate a star.

What is friendship?—do not trust her, Nor the vows which she has made; Diamonds dart their brightest lustre From a palsy-shaken head."

Thus much by way of analyzing the two figures, and illustrating the difference between them. In all these instances may be seen, I think, how in a metaphor the intensity and fire of imagination, instead of placing the two parts side by side, melts them down into one homogeneous mass; which mass is both of them and neither of them at the same time; their respective properties being so interwoven and fused together, that those of each may be affirmed of the other.

I have said that Shakespeare uses the Simile in a way somewhat peculiar. This may require some explication.—Homer, Virgil, Dante, Spenser, Milton, and the great Italian poets of the sixteenth century, all deal largely in what may be styled full-drawn similes; that is, similes carefully elaborated through all their parts, these being knit together in a balanced and rounded whole. Here is an instance of what I mean, from Paradise Lost, i.:

"As when the potent rod Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day, Wav'd round the coast, up call'd a pitchy cloud Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind, That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung Like night, and darken'd all the land of Nile; So numberless where those bad angels seen Hovering on wing under the cope of Hell, 'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires."

This may be fitly taken as a model specimen of the thing; it is severely classical in style, and is well worthy of the great hand that made it. Here is another, somewhat different in structure, and not easy to beat, from Wordsworth's Miscellaneous Sonnets, Part ii.:

"Desponding Father! mark this alter'd bough, So beautiful of late, with sunshine warm'd, Or moist with dews; what more unsightly now, Its blossoms shrivell'd, and its fruit, if form'd, Invisible? yet Spring her genial brow Knits not o'er that discolouring and decay As false to expectation. Nor fret thou At like unlovely process in the May Of human life: a Stripling's graces blow, Fade, and are shed, that from their timely fall (Misdeem it not a cankerous change) may grow Rich mellow bearings, that for thanks shall call."

It may be worth noting, that the first member of this no less beautiful than instructive passage contains one metaphor,—"Spring her genial brow knits not"; and the second two,—"in the May of human life," and, "a Stripling's graces blow, fade, and are shed." Herein it differs from the preceding instance; but I take it to be none the worse for that.

Shakespeare occasionally builds a simile on the same plan; as in the following from Measure for Measure, i. 3:

"Now, as fond fathers, Having bound up the threatening twigs of birch, Only to stick it in their children's sight For terror, not to use, in time the rod Becomes more mock'd than fear'd; so our decrees, Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead; And liberty plucks justice by the nose; The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart Goes all decorum."

But the Poet does not much affect this formal mode of the thing: he has comparatively few instances of it; while his pages abound