Browning seeks to
make us see vividly the hideous character of one of his villains and
says that on his very face you could read his crimes--

"Large-lettered like Hell's masterpiece of print."

The comparison "like Hell's masterpiece" is a simile.

Study each simile you find, and state the exact meaning of each
literally. Compare your statement with the figurative one and see if the
latter is clearer, more forcible, or more beautiful. If any one of the
similes seems less vivid than your own literal statement, ask yourself
if the fault is your own in that you are not thoroughly familiar with
the basis of the figure. It is not necessary that your judgment should
be unassailable. The value of the proceeding lies in the exercise of
your attention and reason. Your judgments will improve, your
appreciation grow keener and more delicate.

_Metaphor:_

"Everywhere
I see in the world the intellect of man,
That sword, the energy, his subtle spear,
The knowledge, which defends him like a shield."

This is another quotation from Browning in which he says intellect is a
sword and energy a spear, thereby assuming a comparison and using the
figure _metaphor_, while in the last line he uses the simile "like a
shield." Ingersoll calls the grave "the windowless palace of rest," and
Whittier refers to it in a beautiful metaphor as "the low green tent
whose curtain never outward swings."

_Synecdoche and Metonymy._ Another group of figures consists in naming
one thing for something else closely associated with it in thought. When
this relation is that of a part to the whole or of the whole to a part,
the figure is synecdoche. Thus, when Browning says "pert tongue and idle
ear consort 'neath the archway" he conveys the idea that idle gossips
gather beneath the archway and with sharp tongues talk over the failings
of their neighbors, and he uses synecdoche in making the ear and the
tongue, parts of the body, signify the person. Our everyday language is
full of these figures in which a part of an object is named to represent
the whole. We speak of owning "twenty head of cattle," of hiring "ten
hands," of seeing "fifteen sails," when we mean that we own twenty
cattle, that we hire ten men, that we see fifteen boats.

When the relation expressed is that of a sign or symbol and that which
is signified or symbolized, a cause and its effect, a material and that
which is made from it, or