work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
5562,"",Found again searching HDIS (Poetry),2003-12-16 00:00:00 UTC,"To rise at noon, sit slipshod and undress'd,
To read the news, or fiddle, as seems best,
Till half the world comes rattling at his door,
To fill the dull vacuity till four;
And just when evening turns the blue vault grey,
To spend two hours in dressing for the day;
To make the Sun a bauble without use,
Save for the fruits his heavenly beams produce,
Quite to forget, or deem it worth no thought,
Who bids him shine, or if he shine or not;
Through mere necessity to close his eyes
Just when the larks and when the shepherds rise;
Is such a life, so tediously the same,
So void of all utility or aim,
That poor Jonquil with almost every breath
Sighs for his exit, vulgarly called death;
For he, with all his follies, has a mind
Not yet so blank, or fashionably blind,
But now and then perhaps a feeble ray
Of distant wisdom shoots across his way,
By which he reads, that life without a plan,
As useless as the moment it began,
Serves merely as a soil for discontent
To thrive in; an incumbrance ere half spent.
Oh weariness beyond what asses feel,
That tread the circuit of the cistern wheel;
A dull rotation, never at a stay,
Yesterday's face twin image of to-day;
While conversation, an exhausted stock,
Grows drowsy as the clicking of a clock.
No need, he cries, of gravity stuff'd out
With academic dignity devout,
To read wise lectures, vanity the text:
Proclaim the remedy, ye learned, next;
For truth self-evident with pomp impress'd
Is vanity surpassing all the rest.
(ll. 75-110, pp. 319-20)",,14884,"•I've included thrice: Blank, Blind, Ray
•Baird and Ryskamp suggest that ""Jonquil"" may come from Lady Winchilsea's ""The Spleen"": ""Now the Jonquille o'ercomes the feeble Brain; / We faint beneath the Aromatick Pain"" (ll. 40-1). Lines of interest in themselves (and echoed by Pope?).","One may have a mind ""Not yet so blank, or fashionably blind, / But now and then perhaps a feeble ray /Of distant wisdom shoots across his way""","",2009-09-14 19:42:11 UTC,""
5705,Mind's Eye,Searching in ECCO,2006-10-13 00:00:00 UTC,"According to Mr. Locke, the soul is a mere rasa tabula, an empty recipient, a mechanical blank. According to Plato, she is an ever-written tablet, a plenitude of forms, a vital and intellectual energy. On the former system, she is on a level with the most degraded natures, the receptacle of material species, and the spectator of delusion and non-entity. Hence, her energies are nothing but somnolent perceptions, and encumbered cogitations; of all her knowledge terminated in sense, and her science in passion. Like a man between sleeping and waking, her visions are turbid and confused, and the phantoms of a material night, continually glide before her drowsy eye. But on the latter system, the soul is the connecting medium of an intelligible and sensible nature, the bright repository of all middle forms, and the vigilant eye of all cogitative reasons. Hence she is capable of rousing herself from the sleep of a corporeal life, and emerging from this dark Cimmerian land, into the regions of light and reality. At first, indeed, before she is excited by science, she is oppressed with lethargy, and clouded with oblivion; but in proportion as learning and enquiry stimulate her dormant powers, she wakens from the dreams of ignorance, and opens her eye to the irradiations of wis- [end page xxxi] dom. On Mr. Locke's system, the principles of science and sense are the same, for the energies of both originate from material forms, on which they are continually employed. Hence, science is subject to the flowing and perishable nature of particulars; and if body and its attributes were destroyed, would be nothing but a name. But on the system of Plato, they differ as much as delusions and reality; for here the vital, permanent, and lucid nature of ideas is the fountain of science; and the inert, unstable, and obscure nature of sensible objects, the source of sensation. On Mr. Locke's system, body may be modified into thought, and become an intelligent creature; it may be subtilized into life, and shrink, by its exility, into intellect. On that of Plato, body can never alter its nature by modification, however, it may be rarefied and refined, varied by the transposition of its part, or tortured by the hand of experiment. In short, the two systems may be aptly represented by the two sections of a line, in Plato's Republic. In the ancient, you have truth itself, and whatever participates of the brightest evidence and reality: in the modern, ignorance, and whatever belongs to obscurity and shadow. The former fills the soul with intelligible light, breaks her lethargic fetters, and elevates her to the principle of things; the latter clouds the intellectual eye of the soul, by increasing her oblivion, strengthens her corporeal bands, and hurries her downwards into the dark labyrinths of matter.
(pp. xxxi-xxxii)",,15223,•Taylor seems like quite a character. See ODNB.
•I've included twice: Eye and Light,"""At first, indeed, before she is excited by science, she is oppressed with lethargy, and clouded with oblivion; but in proportion as learning and enquiry stimulate her dormant powers, she wakens from the dreams of ignorance, and opens her eye to the irradiations of wisdom""","",2009-09-14 19:43:04 UTC,""
5705,"",Searching in ECCO,2006-10-13 00:00:00 UTC,"According to Mr. Locke, the soul is a mere rasa tabula, an empty recipient, a mechanical blank. According to Plato, she is an ever-written tablet, a plenitude of forms, a vital and intellectual energy. On the former system, she is on a level with the most degraded natures, the receptacle of material species, and the spectator of delusion and non-entity. Hence, her energies are nothing but somnolent perceptions, and encumbered cogitations; of all her knowledge terminated in sense, and her science in passion. Like a man between sleeping and waking, her visions are turbid and confused, and the phantoms of a material night, continually glide before her drowsy eye. But on the latter system, the soul is the connecting medium of an intelligible and sensible nature, the bright repository of all middle forms, and the vigilant eye of all cogitative reasons. Hence she is capable of rousing herself from the sleep of a corporeal life, and emerging from this dark Cimmerian land, into the regions of light and reality. At first, indeed, before she is excited by science, she is oppressed with lethargy, and clouded with oblivion; but in proportion as learning and enquiry stimulate her dormant powers, she wakens from the dreams of ignorance, and opens her eye to the irradiations of wis- [end page xxxi] dom. On Mr. Locke's system, the principles of science and sense are the same, for the energies of both originate from material forms, on which they are continually employed. Hence, science is subject to the flowing and perishable nature of particulars; and if body and its attributes were destroyed, would be nothing but a name. But on the system of Plato, they differ as much as delusions and reality; for here the vital, permanent, and lucid nature of ideas is the fountain of science; and the inert, unstable, and obscure nature of sensible objects, the source of sensation. On Mr. Locke's system, body may be modified into thought, and become an intelligent creature; it may be subtilized into life, and shrink, by its exility, into intellect. On that of Plato, body can never alter its nature by modification, however, it may be rarefied and refined, varied by the transposition of its part, or tortured by the hand of experiment. In short, the two systems may be aptly represented by the two sections of a line, in Plato's Republic. In the ancient, you have truth itself, and whatever participates of the brightest evidence and reality: in the modern, ignorance, and whatever belongs to obscurity and shadow. The former fills the soul with intelligible light, breaks her lethargic fetters, and elevates her to the principle of things; the latter clouds the intellectual eye of the soul, by increasing her oblivion, strengthens her corporeal bands, and hurries her downwards into the dark labyrinths of matter.
(pp. xxxi-xxxii)",2011-06-26,15226,"•Taylor seems like quite a character. See ODNB.
•I've included four times: Light, Fetters, Eye, Bands","""The former [Platonic philosophy] fills the soul with intelligible light, breaks her lethargic fetters, and elevates her to the principle of things; the latter [Lockean philosophy] clouds the intellectual eye of the soul, by increasing her oblivion, strengthens her corporeal bands, and hurries her downwards into the dark labyrinths of matter.""",Fetters,2011-05-27 14:11:28 UTC,""
5812,"","Searching ""mind"" and 'invad"" in HDIS (Poetry); confirmed in ECCO.",2005-05-04 00:00:00 UTC," Nor yet explore, with curious bent,
What, known, would but thy soul torment,
And all its hopes betray:
When painful truths invade the mind,
Ev'n wisdom wishes to be blind,
And hates th' officious ray.
(p. 54; cf. p. 253 in London Magazine)",,15487,"•I've included thrice: Invasion and Light and Blindness.
• cite in MS: p. 182, ll. 22-3, 54. ","""When painful truths invade the mind, / Ev'n wisdom wishes to be blind, / And hates th' officious ray.""",Empire,2014-07-10 20:44:43 UTC,""
6982,"",Reading,2011-06-25 03:52:06 UTC,"""Let those, whose arts to fatal paths betray,
""The soul with passion's gloom tempestuous blind,
""And snatch from Reason's ken th'auspicious ray
""Truth darts from Heaven to guide th'exploring mind.
(p. 15)",,18815,"","""Let those, whose arts to fatal paths betray, / The soul with passion's gloom tempestuous blind, / And snatch from Reason's ken th'auspicious ray / Truth darts from Heaven to guide th'exploring mind.""","",2011-06-25 03:52:06 UTC,""
7391,"",Reading at the Folger,2013-05-16 22:16:08 UTC,"If with big meaning pregnant Fancy teem'd;
If o'er each thought, the light of Genius beam'd;
If quick Perception new ideas found,
And lent to verse new luxuries of sound;
If language with new graces was array'd,
More bold, more clear, and more expressive made;
Oh if my muse such gifted stores possess'd
And all those talents labour'd in my breast,
On Cyrrha's highest eminence I'd stand,
Snatch the sonorous harp from Pindar's hand,
His sacred energy thy praise should sing,
Swell ev'ry note, and sound from ev'ry string.
But what avails the sweet resounding lyre,
Thy deeds no aid from tuneful strains require;
Thy praise is hymn'd in the remotest earth,
Thy Fame is universal as thy worth.
(pp 45-6)",,20196,"","""If with big meaning pregnant Fancy teem'd; / If o'er each thought, the light of Genius beam'd; / If quick Perception new ideas found, / And lent to verse new luxuries of sound [...]""","",2013-05-16 22:16:08 UTC,Part II
7486,"",Reading in C-H Lion,2013-06-27 18:13:05 UTC,"In a man of genius, imagination can scarce take a single step, but judgment should attend it. The most luxuriant fancy stands most in need of being checked by judgment. As a rich soil produces not only the largest quantity of grain, but also the greatest profusion of such weeds as tend to choak it; so a fertile imagination, along with just and useful ideas, produces many trifling, false, and improper thoughts, which, if they be not immediately examined by reason, and speedily rejected, will over-run and obstruct the truth or the beauty which the others might have produced. Judgment cannot collect ideas, but it revises those which fancy has collected, and either adopts or rejects them, as it finds cause. Though a bright and comprehensive fancy be the principal ingredient in genius, yet nothing is so dangerous as to affect to display it constantly, or to indulge it without any control from reflection; nothing is productive of greater faults. This leads philosophers to construct whimsical hypotheses, instead of inventing just theories. This leads poets to describe improbable events and unnatural characters, and to search for unseasonable wit and ill-timed splendour, when judgment would have directed them to imitate nature with exactness, and to study simplicity of expression. This leads painters capriciously to create imaginary decorations, instead of inventing natural and consistent embeilishments. Imagination must set all the ideas and all the analogies of things, which it collects, before the discerning eye of reason, and submit them absolutely to its sovereign decision. It is justly observed by Quintilian, that every fiction of the human fancy is approved in the moment of its production. The exertion of the mind which is requisite in forming it, is agreeable; and the face of novelty which infant conceptions wear, fails not to recommend them promiscuously, till reason has had time to survey and examine them. Were reason never to scrutinize them, all our ideas would be retained indiscriminately, and the productions of fancy would be perfectly monstrous. While a man is engaged in composition or investigation, he often seems to himself to be fired with his subject, and to teem with ideas; but on revising the work, finds that his judgment is offended, and his time lost. An idea that sparkled in the eye of fancy, is often condemned by judgment as false and unsubstantial. A more rigid exercise of this latter faculty, would have preserved Tasso from introducing sentiments which have show without justness, and figures which surprise and dazzle, but are unsuitable to the purpose to which they ought to have been subservient; and would have enabled him to escape the censure of having overspread his work with tinsel, and thus sullied the lustre of the pure gold which it contains.
(I.iv, pp. 75-8)",,21185,"","""While a man is engaged in composition or investigation, he often seems to himself to be fired with his subject, and to teem with ideas; but on revising the work, finds that his judgment is offended, and his time lost. An idea that sparkled in the eye of fancy, is often condemned by judgment as false and unsubstantial.""",Eye,2013-06-27 18:13:05 UTC,""
7498,"",C-H Lion,2013-07-01 18:15:27 UTC,"The third species of Invention, by which we observed original Genius will be distinguished, is that of IMAGERY. The stile of an original Author in Poetry is for the most Part FIGURATIVE and METAPHORICAL. The ordinary modes of speech being unable to express the grandeur or the strength of his conceptions, appear FLAT and LANGUID to his ardent Imagination. In order therefore to supply the poverty of common language, he has recourse to METAPHORS and IMAGES; which, though they may sometimes occasion the want of precision, will always elevate his stile, as well as give a peculiar dignity and energy to his sentiments. An original Author indeed will frequently be apt to exceed in the use of this ornament, by pouring forth such a blaze of imagery, as to dazzle and overpower the mental sight; the effect of which is, that his Writings become obscure, if not unintelligible to common Readers; just as the eye is for some time rendered incapable of distinguishing the objects that are presented to it, after having stedfastly contemplated the Sun. Well chosen images, happily adapted to the purpose for which they are adduced, if not too frequently employed, produce a fine effect in Poetry. They impart a pleasing gratification to the mind, arising from the discovery of the resemblance betwixt the similitude and the object to which it is compared; they remarkably enliven description, at the same time that they embellish it with additional graces; they give force as well as grandeur to the stile of Poetry, and are a principal source of those exquisite sensations, which it is calculated to inspire. On the other hand, the too liberal use of IMAGERY even in Poetry (besides that obscurity which it occasions to the ordinary class of Readers, as well as that fatigue which the Imagination experiences from its excessive glare) so disgusts the mind with the perpetual labour of tracing relations and resemblances, which cannot always be immediately perceived, that the tide of passion is by this means diverted, if it doth not subside, and the pleasure arising from poetic imitation is greatly diminished, if not utterly destroyed. A Writer however, who is only possessed of a moderate degree of Genius, is in very little hazard of falling into this extreme. His imagination is not extensive enough to comprehend those remote analogies which subsist betwixt different objects in nature, nor does it possess force sufficient to throw off a bold and glowing image founded upon such analogies: the performances of such an Author therefore will either be intirely destitute of the images of Poetry, excepting such as arise from the most obvious relations of ideas; of else those which he adopts will be borrowed from Authors of superior Genius. Hence it is, that the images of Homer have been so often copied by modern Poets, who either possessed not fertility of Invention enough to strike out new similitudes for themselves, or dared not to exert it. A Poet endued with a truly original Genius, will however be under no necessity of drawing any of the materials of his composition from the Works of preceding Bards; since he has an unfailing resource in the exuberance of his own Imagination, which will furnish him with a redundance of all those materials, and particularly with an inexhaustible variety of new and splendid imagery, which must be regarded as one distinguishing mark of original poetic Genius.
(pp. 143-8)",,21378,"","""An original Author indeed will frequently be apt to exceed in the use of this ornament, by pouring forth such a blaze of imagery, as to dazzle and overpower the mental sight; the effect of which is, that his Writings become obscure, if not unintelligible to common Readers; just as the eye is for some time rendered incapable of distinguishing the objects that are presented to it, after having stedfastly contemplated the Sun.""","",2013-07-01 18:15:27 UTC,""
7499,"",C-H Lion,2013-07-02 15:39:23 UTC,"XLVI
'And Reason now through Number, Time, and Space,
'Darts the keen lustre of her serious eye,
'And learns, from facts compared, the laws to trace,
'Whose long progression leads to Deity.
'Can mortal strength presume to soar so high!
'Can mortal sight, so oft bedim'd with tears,
'Such glory bear!---for lo, the shadows fly
'From nature's face; Confusion disappears,
'And order charms the eyes, and harmony the ears.
(Bk II, p. 39, ll. 406-414)",,21410,"","""And Reason now through Number, Time, and Space, / 'Darts the keen lustre of her serious eye, / 'And learns, from facts compared, the laws to trace, / 'Whose long progression leads to Deity.""",Eye,2013-07-02 15:39:23 UTC,Book II
7516,"",Reading,2013-07-09 03:40:51 UTC,"Many of the phoenomena of Memory and circumstances attending it, while they puzzle a keen inquirer, are exceedingly amusing to a moderate observer. If there be no substance in the mind on which impressions are made, how is it that by reiterated repetition we produce this effect, that ideas and words which we are conscious were not in our minds before are now in it, and though forgotten or unobserved for a time, appear again in it? How is it that according to the common very expressive phrase, we get compositions by heart? If impressions are made upon some substance in the mind, may not forgetfulness of them be only that the perceptive faculty of the soul is turned to other objects, while these still remain ready to be perceived whenever the ""mind's eye,"" glances upon them? An Hypochondriack is subject to forgetfulness, which may be owing to another cause; that there is a darkness in his mind, or that its perceptive eye is injured and weak at times."" Or it may be thus: his ideas hide themselves like birds in gloomy weather; but in warm sunshine they spring forth gay and airy. It is plain they cannot rise if they are not there. Let an Hypochondriack then have his park well stocked. Let him get as many agreeable ideas into his mind as he can; and though there may in wintery days seem: a total vacancy, yet when summer glows benignant, and the time of singing of birds is come, he will be delighted with gay colours and enchanting notes.
(p. 158 in London Magazine)",,21556,"","""An Hypochondriack is subject to forgetfulness, which may be owing to another cause; that there is a darkness in his mind, or that its perceptive eye is injured and weak at times.""",Eye,2013-07-09 03:40:51 UTC,""