never on foot the Northman never needed land. The sea, instead of being a barrier, was the very element and condition of his victories, and carried him upon his bosom up and down with an ease and expedition which even in an open plain country was impracticable."-Newman: Historical Sketches; The Northmen and Normans, i. 4.

The paragraph quoted last is followed by two which from the point of style make rather a better comparison. I have selected this one on account of its subject-matter.

B. COMPARISON AND ANALOGY.

79. We must now say a word about Comparison and Analogy, and see what they are and why they should be distinguished and set apart from the figures we have already been speaking of. They would certainly seem to be very like them.

Of course Simile, Allegory, and Metaphor all involve a comparison of two ideas. Equally true is it that an Analogy and a Contrast involve such comparison. It would seem that so general a term as Comparison was out of place as a particular designation. Yet I think, provided we do not trouble ourselves with the attempt to define the exact limits of each term, we shall see certain modes of illustration broadly different which seem to call for names. We have already used Simile, Allegory, Metaphor for certain indications of resemblance between two ideas. They involve comparisons, but the term Comparison we shall use in a narrower sense. These three we call Figures of Speech, but they also serve as Illustrations.

There are, however, certain other statements of likeness which we do not call Figures. When, for instance, Macaulay in his History compares Lochiel with Lewis XIV. (iii. 252) or the state of Scotland in 1689 with the state of Europe (iii. 249) or the Restoration with the Revolution (iii. 314), or Schomberg with Wellington (iii. 328), we do

not think of these as figures. If you will compare them with the examples in the previous section you will perceive that there is a difference. As to what the precise difference may be we need not inquire very particularly: it probably lies in the fact that in this case we are comparing things of the same kind, whereas in the figures we were comparing things of different kinds. We may at least take this as the distinction between a simile, for instance, and a comparison.

It has not been our plan to endeavor after very nice distinctions in critical definition. But we can hardly read a good history without perceiving that the device of comparison, in the broadest sense, may serve various different purposes. A curious example offers itself in the third Lecture of Stanley's Jewish Church. Compare, if you will, the following passages:

"The ground was strewn with wide sheets of bare rock; here and there stood up isolated fragments, like ancient Druidical monuments." i. 64.

"The monument . . . must have been, like so many described or seen in other times and countries, a rude copy of the natural features of the place, as at Carnac in Brittany, the cromlechs of Wales and Cornwall, or the walls of Tiryns, where the play of nature and the simple city of art are almost undistinguishable." i. 64.

"When we see the rude remains of Abury in our own country, there is a strange interest in the thought that they were the first architectural witness of English religion. Even so the pillar or cairn or cromlech of Bethel must have been looked upon by the Israelites." i. 65.

Here, almost in the same page, we have the stone set up by Jacob brought nearer to us by three comparisons-to use the broadest term. The first is obviously a simile. The second we should call a comparison proper, for it compares Jacob's monument with other monuments of similar

character, and marks very particularly a certain common. characteristic. In the third we have a slight difference: it is not Jacob's monument that is compared to the rude remains of Abury. We are told that the relation of the monument of Jacob to the Israelitish religion was much the same as that of the remains of Abury to the English religion. When a likeness in relation is noted between two things, it is called an Analogy.

Let us for a moment fix our attention upon this last mode of illustration. A very little historical reading will show you what a powerful means it is of bringing to our comprehension things that it might otherwise have been. difficult to understand. I should recommend to you, if you do not feel clear on this point, to read carefully some good history and to note the analogies. Of course it is not every historian who looks at his subject in this way. Motley, for instance, as a rule has his mind too intently on his subject for the time being to compare it with like events of other times and places. And Macaulay, on the other hand, was always ready with a comparison or an analogy. I will give you a few examples from Dean Stanley's work just quoted. The History of the Jewish Church is particularly rich in illustrations of this kind, for the author had constantly in mind the idea that the history of the Jews, although the history of a sacred people, was not a sacred history, that the events of the Bible have had their analogies in succeeding times. To impress his reader with that idea he is constantly noticing similarities which often take the form of Analogies as we have defined them.

When Abraham purchased the cave of Machpelah, he says (i. 43): "The tomb of Mach pelah is a proof standing to this day of the long predetermined assurance that the children of Abraham should inherit the land in which this was their ancestors' sole but most precious possession. It

is like the purchase of the site of Hannibal's camp by the strong faith and hope of the besieged senators of Rome."

"It has been said that Egypt must have presented to the nomadic tribes of Asia the same contrast and the same attractions that Italy and the southern provinces of the Roman empire presented to the Gothic and Celtic tribes who descended upon them from the Alps." i. 84.

Abimelech "on the other hand. . . appealed to the common element of himself and the subject Shechemites, like our Henry, the first Norman son of a Saxon mother." i. 385.

Note also the more elaborate analogy drawn between Israel under the Judges and the Middle Ages (i. 343 foll.), which is partly direct comparison. Compare also the calling Jacob "the Hebrew Ulysses" (i. 180); the comparing the Hebrews in Egypt and the Pelasgians in Attica (i. 92); the influence of Egypt on the Hebrews and that of Rome upon the early Christian Church (i. 94); the impression made by Strabo's mention of Moses, and Pliny's mention of the early Christian society (i. 115); the passage of the Red Sea, and the raising of the siege of Leyden, and the overthrow of the Armada (i. 145); and in fact the whole work passim.

We ought now to have an understanding of Analogy: it concerns not the things in question so much as their relation to something else. It is not that the Hebrews resembled the "Gothic and Celtic tribes," for instance, but that the effect of Egypt on the former must have been much the same as the effect of Italy on the latter. Being, then, a comparison of relations, we shall find it most useful. in the case of Description, because in that kind of composition we are dealing with particular things, which, however individual they may be, are naturally enough in relations which are often repeated. In Exposition, on the other hand, analogies it would seem are not so obvious, for

general ideas do not so often exist in repeated relations as particular things. The argument by analogy is not a matter of illustration and does not belong to the present discussion.

Having, then, distinguished analogies from other comparisons, there is not much to say now. Contrast as a form of comparison is readily understood and its usefulness is obvious. We have said a good deal about it already (38, c. 44). The term Parallel is sometimes used for a detailed comparison of two things which agree in several respects. Otherwise the term comparison is used (as above) for a presentation of an agreement between two things of the same kind, and also, somewhat vaguely, for a somewhat detailed statement of the points of agreement and disagreement. It may be properly applied, I believe, to very short comparisons or very long ones. The restriction usually held in mind is that a comparison notes likeness to some thing of the same kind as the thing compared.

80. Value of the Foregoing Modes of Illustration. Having illustrated Analogy and Comparison in such detail, it seems hardly necessary to show how effective they may be made as means of illustration. They are not merely for use as adornment, they are a solid help. I have remarked, for instance, that Analogy is more useful in Description than elsewhere. This does not mean that it should be carefully avoided in other kinds of composition. That matter will doubtless take care of itself without trouble on your part. The thing for you to take care of is to busy yourself about thinking them up when you are employed over something where they will be useful. You must not expect that they will spring into your mind without trouble. Perhaps they will; so much the better. But if they will not come uncalled you had better send for them, and although, like Glendower's spirits, they are not