id,dictionary,theme,reviewed_on,metaphor,created_at,provenance,comments,work_id,text,context,updated_at
15364,Theater,"",,"""His mind resembled the vast ampitheatre, the Colisaeum at Rome. In the centre stood his judgment, which like a mighty gladiator, combated those apprehensions that, like the wild beasts of the Arena, were all around in cells, ready to be let out upon him. After a conflict, he drives then back to their dens; but not killing them, they were still assailing him.""",2005-09-19 00:00:00 UTC,"Reading; confirmed in ECCO-TCP. Found again reading Jack Lynch, ""Samuel Johnson, Unbeliever."" Eighteenth-Century Life 29:3 (September, 2005): 1-19, 16. https://doi.org/10.1215/00982601-29-3-1","•I've included four times: Ampitheatre, Coliseum, Gladiator, Beasts",5767,"When we were alone, I introduced the subject of death, and endeavoured to maintain that the fear of it might be got over. I told him that David Hume said to me, he was no more uneasy to think he should not be after his life, than that he he had not been before he began to exist. JOHNSON. ""Sir, if he really thinks so, his perceptions are disturbed; he is mad; if he does think so, he lies. He may tell you, he holds his finger in the flame of a candle, without feeling pain; would you believe him? When he dies, he at least gives up all he has."" BOSWELL. Foote, Sir, told me, that when he was very ill he was not afraid to die."" JOHNSON. ""It is not true, Sir. Hold a pistol to Foote's breast, or to Hume's breast, and threaten to kill them and you'll see how they behave."" BOSWELL. ""But may we not fortify our minds for the approach of death?""--Here I am sensible I was in the wrong, to bring before his view what he ever looked upon with horrour; for although when in a celestial frame of mind in his ""Vanity of Human Wishes,"" he has supposed death to be ""kind Nature's signal for retreat,"" from this state of being to ""a happier seat,"" his thoughts upon this awful were in general full of dismal apprehensions. His mind resembled the vast ampitheatre, the Colisaeum at Rome. In the centre stood his judgment, which like a mighty gladiator, combated those apprehensions that, like the wild beasts of the Arena, were all around in cells, ready to be let out upon him. After a conflict, he drives then back to their dens; but not killing them, they were still assailing him. To my question, whether we might not fortify our minds for the approach of death, he answered in a passion, ""No, Sir, let it alone. It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time."" He added, (with an earnest look,) ""A man knows it must be so, and submits. It will do him no good to whine.""
(p. 379-80; cf. I, p. 329 in 1791 printing)","A.D. 1769, Aetat. 60",2018-04-16 20:44:57 UTC
17456,Animals and Inhabitants,"",,"""For, it is the opinion of choice virtuosi, that the brain is only a crowd of little animals, but with teeth and claws extremely sharp, and therefore cling together in the contexture we behold, like the picture of Hobbes's Leviathan, or like bees in perpendicular swarm upon a tree, or like a carrion corrupted into vermin, still preserving the shape and figure of the mother animal; that all invention is formed by the morsure of two or more of these animals, upon certain capillary nerves, which proceed from thence, whereof three branches spread into the tongue, and two into the right hand.""",2009-07-09 00:00:00 UTC,Reading,"I've included four times: Teeth and Claws, Bees, Vermin, Leviathan. See A Tale of a Tub and Other Works, ed. by A. Ross and D. Woolley, (Oxford UP, 1990), 134.",6572,"Here it may not be amiss to add a few words upon the laudable practice of wearing quilted caps; which is not a matter of mere custom, humour, or fashion, as some would pretend, but an institution of great sagacity and use; these, when moistened with sweat, stop all perspiration, and by reverberating the heat prevent the spirit from evaporating any way but at the mouth: even as a skilful house-wife, that covers her still with a wet clout, for the same reason, and finds the same effect. For, it is the opinion of choice virtuosi, that the brain is only a crowd of little animals, but with teeth and claws extremely sharp, and therefore cling together in the contexture we behold, like the picture of Hobbes's Leviathan, or like bees in perpendicular swarm upon a tree, or like a carrion corrupted into vermin, still preserving the shape and figure of the mother animal; that all invention is formed by the morsure of two or more of these animals, upon certain capillary nerves, which proceed from thence, whereof three branches spread into the tongue, and two into the right hand. They hold also, that these animals are of a constitution extremely cold; that their food is the air we attract, their excrement phlegm; and that what we vulgarly called rheums, and colds, and distillations, is nothing else but an epidemical looseness, to which that little commonwealth is very subject from the climate it lies under. Further, that nothing less than a violent heat can disentangle these creatures from their hamated station of life, or give them vigour and humour to imprint the marks of their little teeth. That, if the morsure be hexagonal, it produces Poetry; the circular gives Eloquence; if the bite hath been conical, the person, whose nerve is so affected, shall be disposed to write upon Politics; and so of the rest.
(pp. 134-5)","",2014-07-11 15:38:51 UTC
18566,"","",,"""If I cannot, draw out Cacus from his Den; I may pluck the Villain from my own Breast. I cannot cleanse the Stables of Augeas; but I may cleanse my own Heart from Filth and Impurity: I may demolish the Hydra of Vices within me; and should be careful too, that while I lop off one, I do not suffer more to grow up in its stead.""",2011-05-26 05:36:19 UTC,Reading,"",6908,"On looking about him, he will find many Avenues to the Temple of Fame barred against him: but some are still open through, that of Virtue: and those, if he has a right Ambition, he will most probably attempt to pass. The more a Man is unactive in his Person, the more his Mind will be at work: and the Time which others spend in Action, he will pass in Study and Contemplation: by these he may acquire Wisdom, and by Wisdom Fame. The Name of Socrates is as much sounded, as those of Alexander and Caesar; and is recorded in much fairer Characters, He gained Renown by Wisdom and Goodness; they by Tyranny and Oppression: he by instructing; they by destroying Mankind: and happy it is, that their evil Deeds were confined to their Lives; while he continues to instruct us to this Day. A deformed Person will naturally consider, where his Strength and his Foible lie; and as he is well acquainted with the last, he will easily find out the first; and must know, that (if it is any where) it is not, like Sampson's , in the Hair; but must be in the Lining of the Head. He will say to himself, I am weak in Person; unable to serve my Country in the Field; I can acquire no military Glory: but I may, like Socrates, acquire Reputation by Wisdom and Probity: let me therefore be wise and honest. My Figure is very bad: and I should appear but ill as an Orator, either in the Pulpit 'or at the Bar: let me therefore pass my Time in my Study, either in reading what may improve my self, or in writing what may entertain or instruct others. I have not the Strength of Hercules; nor can I rid the World of so many Monsters: but perhaps I may get rid of some my self. If I cannot, draw out Cacus from his Den; I may pluck the Villain from my own Breast. I cannot cleanse the Stables of Augeas; but I may cleanse my own Heart from Filth and Impurity: I may demolish the Hydra of Vices within me; and should be careful too, that while I lop off one, I do not suffer more to grow up in its stead. Let me be serviceable in any way that I can: and if I am so, it may in some measure be owing to my Deformity. Which at least should be a Restraint on my Conduct, lest my Conduct make me more deformed.
(pp. 69-71)","",2011-05-26 05:36:19 UTC
21230,Animals and Inhabitants,"",,"""We have a faint Image of these Operations in Hawking: For Memory may be justly compar'd to the Dog that beats the Field, or the Wood, and that starts the Game; Imagination to the Falcon that clips it upon its Pinions after it; and Judgment to the Falconer, who directs the Flight, and who governs the whole.""",2013-06-28 03:02:35 UTC,Searching in C-H Lion,"",7488,"When the Prefacer tells us, in his very first Paragraph; that Homer is universally allow'd to have had the greatest Invention of any Writer whatever, he is so far from telling us, at the same Time, what Invention is, that he plainly discovers that he knows nothing of it. For he seems to take it for a peculiar Faculty of the Mind, distinct from Memory, Imagination, and Judgment; whereas it is the Effect and Result of the confederate Powers and Operation of all the three. We have a faint Image of these Operations in Hawking: For Memory may be justly compar'd to the Dog that beats the Field, or the Wood, and that starts the Game; Imagination to the Falcon that clips it upon its Pinions after it; and Judgment to the Falconer, who directs the Flight, and who governs the whole. But P. as has been said, takes it for a distinct Faculty; he opposes it to Judgment in this very Paragraph; and in the last Paragraph of the third Page, [Edit. 2.] he calls it the strong and the ruling Faculty.
(p. 22)","",2013-06-28 03:02:35 UTC