Note 133 — AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM.
Reading edition
This is, perhaps, the best simile in our language—that in which the most exact resemblance is traced between things in appearance utterly unrelated to each other.—Johnson.
I will own I am not of this opinion. The simile appears evidently to have been suggested by the following one in the works of Drummond:
All as a pilgrim who the Alps doth pass, Or Atlas' temples crowned with winter's glass, The airy Caucasus, the Apennine, Pyrene's cliffs where sun doth never shine, When he some heaps of hills hath overwent, Begins to think on rest, his journey spent, Till mounting some tall mountain he doth find More heights before him than he left behind.—Warton.
The simile is undoubtedly appropriate, illustrative, and eminently beautiful, but evidently copied.—Bowles.