Elements of the philosophy of the human mind. By Dugald Stewart. Rev. and abridged, with critical and explanatory notes, for the use of colleges and schools. By Francis Bowen ...

18(0 POETICAL FAINCI.
has been much, and justly, admired. How would the beauty of
the allusion have been diminished, if the Alps had furnished
the original subject and not the illustration ]
But although this rule holds in general, _ acknowledge, that
instances may be produced, frolm our most celebrated poetical
perfbrmances, of allusions from material objects, both to the
intellectual and the moral worlds. These, however, are comparatively few in number, and are not to be found in descriptive
or in didactic works; but in compositions written under the
influence of some particular passion, or which are meant to express some peculiarity in the mind of the author. Thus, a
melancholy man who has met with many misfortunes in life,
will be apt to moralize on every physical event, and every appearance of nature; because his attention dwells more habitually on human life and conduct, than on the material objects
around him. This is the case with the banished Duke, in
Shakspeare's As you, like it; who, in the language of that poet,
"Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing."
But this is plainly a distempered state of the mind; and the
allusions please, not so much by the analogies they present, as
by the picture they give of the character of the person to
whom they have occurred.
2. An allusion pleases, by presenting a new and beautiful
image to the mind. The analogy or the resemblance between
this image and the principal subject, is agreeable of itself, and
is indeed necessary, to furnish an apology for the transition
which the writer makes; but the pleasure is wonderfully heightened, when the new image thus presented is a beautiful one.
The following allusion, in one of Mr. Home's tragedies, appears
to me to unite almost every excellence: —
~- P-" Hope and fear alternate sway'd his breast;
Like light and shade upon a waving field,
Coursing each other, when the flying clouds
Now hide, and now reveal, the sun."
HIere the analogy is remarkably perfect; not only between