SIMILE

In Rhetoric, appears to differ from Metaphor (which see) only in form; the resOBV blance being stated in the first case, implied m the second. This is the sense In which the term Comparison is used and defined by Aristotle, in his Art of Rhetoric. Frequently the same idea furnishes at the same time ik th comparison and metaphor; as in the following line, " They melted from the field as snow." The word " melted" Is used by trans ferring the property of the snow to a multitude of individuals; so far, therefore, the phrase is a metaphor; but the additional words, "as snow." transform ii into a direct comparison. Perhaps, however, it might be more correctly said, in this instance, that the predicate ■•molted" is transferred by the figure termed Efypallage from thesnoic to the multitude, both words being used as subjects in the same sentence. The comparison, being as it were a metaphor resolved and rendered more (lowing and le concise, (s more appropriate to poetry than to prose composition. In fact, the only figures of this description which are gem • rally admi ible in prose writing are illustrations; i. e. argument! drawn from analogy in the form of compart (See Illustration.) It will generally be found thai iu every language the earliest writers, especially the poets are the most addicted to the use of comparisons and met* phors of a highly figurative and bold character, as is espe. cially observable with respect to the sacred poets, aid tn Homer; while as language advances in cultivation the me taphor comes more and more into ordinary use, and forms, as it were, the basis of composition, while at the same time it gradually loses the energetic and poetical cast which at first distinguished it. COMPARISON, [s. 279]