11G 



ALLtGORY ALLEIN. 



directly contrary to the literal signification of the 

 \vonls, while in allegory there is nn agreement be- 

 tween the litenil and the figurative >t use, each ot 

 which is complete in itself. The allegory should be 

 so construct! d us to express its meaning clearly anil 

 strikingly ; and the more clear anil striking the 

 meaning is, the better is the allegory. All of the 

 fine ans have, to a certain degree, an allegorical 

 character, because, in all, the visible signs generally 

 represent something higher, the ideal ; but in the 

 narrower M-n>e of allegory, its object is to convey a 

 meaning of a particular character by means of signs 

 of an analogous import. The allegory, moreover, 

 ought to represent an ensemble, by which it is dis- 

 tinguished from the trope or metaphor and the con- 

 ventional symbol. The last differs from the alle- 

 gory, also, in this particular, that its character could 

 not be understood, if it had not been previously 

 agreed upon. For instance, the olive-branch would 

 not convey the. idea of peace if it had not been 

 adopted as its sign. From all which has been said, 

 it is clear, that the allegory can take place in rheto- 

 ric, poetry, sculpture, painting, and pantomime, but 

 never in music or architecture, because these two 

 arts are not capable of conveying a double meaning 

 in their representations. As an instance of allegory 

 in poetry, Prior's verses from Henry and Emma 

 may serve : 



" Did I but purpose to embark with thce 



On the smooth surface of a summer sea, 



While gentle zephyrs play with prosperous gales, 



And fortune's favour nils the swelling sails, 



But would forsake the ship, and make the shore, 



When the winds whistle, and the tempests roar I" 



or the often quoted ode i., 14 of Horace. An in- 

 stance of allegory in painting or sculpture is the 

 representation of peace by two turtle-doves sitting 

 on their nest in a helmet or a piece of ordnance ; or 

 Guide's representation of Fortuna. The represen- 

 tation of an allegory ought always to lead directly to 

 its figurative meaning ; thus a warrior throwing the 

 doves out of a helmet would be a bad allegory of 

 war ; a good one would be a husbandman making a 

 weapon out of his scythe. In rhetoric, allegory is 

 often but a continued metaphor. The symbolic and 

 allegoric representation often come very near to each 

 other, and sometimes it is hard to say to which a 

 piece of art most 'inclines. This is the case, for in- 

 stance, with the beautiful representations of Justice, 

 Poetry, &c., by Raphael, in the Vatican. Parables 

 and fables are a species of allegory ; e. g. the beau- 

 tiful parable in one of the tales in the Arabian 

 Nights, in which the three religions, the Mahomme- 

 dan, Jewish, and Christian, are compared to three 

 similar rings, bequeathed to three brothers by their 

 fether. This allegory has been repeated by Boccac- 

 cio in a tale of his Decameron, and by Lessing, in 

 his Nathan the Wise. Allegory in rhetoric was used 

 by the most ancient nations, because it is well fitted 

 to express an elevated state of feeling, and, at the 

 same time, to give somewhat of the charm of novelty 

 to ideas at once common and important. Addison 

 truly says, " Allegories, when well chosen, are like 

 so many tracts of light in a discourse, that make 

 every thing about them clear and beautiful. In 

 painting and sculpture, however, the ancients made 

 by no means so much use of allegory as the modern 

 artists, partly owing to their greater facility of ex- 

 pressing certain ideas by means of the stories and the 

 images of their different gods, who all more or less 

 represented a single idea. The moderns have no 

 such copious stores of illustration, the protestants 

 particularly, who are not familiar with the multitude 

 of catholic saints and legends ,- thus they are often 

 obliged to express single ideas by allegory. Another 



cause of the greater prevalence of allegory in mo- 

 dern times is to lie found in thr. drcunisUmcc, that 

 allegory is always more cultivated in the period ot 

 the decline of the ans, when the want of great and 

 pure and simple conceptions of the beautiful is sup- 

 plied by studied and ingenious inventions, as well as 

 in the fact, that the anelcnis were more exclusively 

 comcrsiiit with simple ideas than the moderns, 

 among whom the relations of society are much more 

 complicated, and every branch of science, art, and 

 social life more fully developed. Sometimes whole 

 poems are allegorical, as Spenser's Fairy ( v in< en ; 

 but, in these cases, the poet must take gnat care not 

 to fall into trifling. Hunyan's Pilgrim's J'rogr. 

 a famous instance of a work wholly allegorical. 

 There was a time when every poem was taken as an 

 allegory; even such works as those of Ariosto and 

 Tasso were tortured from their true meaning, and 

 made to pass for allegorical pictures. Then- 

 many editions of these poets, in which, at the begin- 

 ning of each canto, the allegory of it is given. With 

 equally little reason, the Song of Solomon has long 

 been considered an allegory of Christ's Jove i 

 church. The most productive period of allegory in 

 painting and sculpture was that of Louis XV., 

 which may be styled, in regard to Hie arts, tin- a^t 

 of flattery. During this period, innumerable lid, 

 and some good ones were produced. They are now- 

 much less in vogue. Rubens painted several fine 

 allegorical pictures, in the Luxemburg galltry. 

 Lessing, Herder, and Winckelnuuui ha\e investi- 

 gated the subject of this article, perhaps, more tho- 

 roughly than any other modern writers. No poet, 

 in our opinion, has made use of allegory in a more 

 powerful and truly poetical manner than the great 

 Dante ; yet the opinion that the whole of his JJivina 

 Commedia is allegorical, is quite erroneous. 



ALLEGRI, Gregorio, a singer in the papal chapel, 

 and considered to this day, in Italy, one of the most 

 excellent composers of his time, was born at Rome, 

 in 1590, and died there in 1G52. He was a scholar 

 of Nanini. His Miserere, one of the most sublime 

 and delightful works of human art, has particularly 

 distinguished him. It is even now sung yearly, 

 during passion-week, in the Sistine cliapel at Home. 

 This composition was once esteemed so holy, tliat 

 whoever ventured to transcribe it was liable to ex- 

 communication. Mozart disregarded this prohibi- 

 tion and, after two hearings, made a correct copy ot 

 the original. In 1771, it appeared at London, en- 

 graved, and in 1810, at Paris, in the Collection des 

 Classifies. In 1773, the king of England obtained 

 a copy, as a present from the pope himself. Ac- 

 cording to the opinion of Baini,at present the leader 

 of the choir (maestro della cappella}, in the pope's 

 chapel, the Miserere of Allegriwas not composed for 

 all the voices, but only the bass of the eighteen or 

 twenty first parts ; all the rest is the addition of suc- 

 cessive singers. But in the beginning of the 18th 

 century, the existing manner of singing it was 

 Wished as a standard at Rome, by the orders of the 

 pope. A full score of it has never existed. A. is 

 also the name of an Italian satirical poet, a native oi 

 Florence, who flourished towards the end of the 16th 

 century. His Christian name was Alexander. 



ALLEGRO, in music ; a word denoting one of the 

 six distinctions of time. It expresses a sprightly 

 motion, the quickest of all, and originally means gay. 

 The usual distinctions succeed each other in the fol- 

 lowing order grave, adagio, largo, vivace, allegro, 

 presto. Allegro time may be heightened, as allegro 

 assai and allegrissimo, very lively , or lessened, as 

 allegretto or poco allegro, a little lively. Piii allegro 

 is a direction to play or sing a little quicker. 



ALLEN, Joseph, the author of a popular religious 



