id,dictionary,theme,reviewed_on,metaphor,created_at,provenance,comments,work_id,text,context,updated_at
8650,Rooms,Inner and Outer,2011-12-21,"""This is the case of many a beau / Who gives up all for glare and show. / Outside and front all fine and burnish'd, / But the inner rooms are thinly furnish'd.""",2005-06-03 00:00:00 UTC,Searching in HDIS (Poetry),"•I've included twice: Furniture and Rooms
• QUOTED IN DICTIONARY",3374,"""Ingenium ingens inculto latet hoc sub corpore.""
Philosophers of old dispute ye
Whether mere virtue without beauty,
Unhewn, unpolish'd, better is
Than vitium cum illecebris.
The man who, twenty years undusted,
In books and single life has rusted,
Contemns the world, commends his college,
And talks of solid sense and knowledge.
For through a medium form'd by reading,
Unrectified by sense or breeding,
Who views the world, but must despise?
Who is there will not trust his eyes?
And though ill-form'd, who will suspect
In his own judgment a defect?
A man brought hither from the moon
(For rhyme's sake) in an air balloon,
Would stare to see our people throw
Away their victuals when they sow;
But this good soul who saw corn sowing,
Yet had no notion of its growing,
Were he to laugh at us, I trust,
His censure would be thought unjust.
Who hears a story but half told,
Who knows no learning but the old,
Their judgments equally must fail
In censuring the times or tale:
The world must his contempt despise
Who looks at them with borrow'd eyes.
Now let us hear what says the beau--
""Politeness is a passe pour tout.
""Latin and Greek, old fogrum stuff,
""Don't signify a pinch of snuff.""
Suppose a house built, if you please,
With cornice, architrave, and frieze,
Entablature of colonnade,
And knicknacks of the building trade;
Grand and complete, it draws the eye
Of passengers a-riding by;
The very connoisseurs allow
No palace makes a nobler show;
Yet you would think the man but silly
Who having built this sumptuous villa,
Had not a tolerable room
To show his friends in when they come
This is the case of many a beau
Who gives up all for glare and show.
Outside and front all fine and burnish'd,
But the inner rooms are thinly furnish'd.
Suppose another's mind so grovelling
That a most execrable hovel in
He, strangely whimsey-struck, should like
To fix the pictures of Vandyke;
I say, if such a den he chose,
Each passer-by would turn his nose.
But should he chance to enter in,
'Twere then, indeed, another thing.
He'd talk of attitudes and contours,
Show his own taste and flatter yours;
And though a little odd your plan,
Call you a reasonable man;
But thousands that remain without
Think you a madman past all doubt.
This is the only difference on't,
To those who know you or who don't;
To seem a fool, the difference this
'Twixt pedant and 'twixt coxcomb is;
The man of real worth and merit,
The praise of either will inherit.",I've included the entire Poem,2011-12-21 18:28:50 UTC
15094,Rooms,"",2012-06-27,"""Thus a large dumpling to its cell confin'd / (A very apt allusion to my mind).""",2005-03-26 00:00:00 UTC,Searching in HDIS (Poetry); confirmed in ECCO.,"•Wolcot here uses a metaphor of mind with self awareness INTEREST. USE IN ENTRY?
•I've included twice: Dumpling and Cell",5647," What dire emotions shook the Monarch's soul!
Just like two billiard balls his eyes 'gan roll,
Whilst anger all his royal heart possess'd,
That, swelling, wildly bump'd against his breast,
Bounc'd at his ribs with all its might so stout,
As resolutely bent on jumping out,
T'avenge, with all its pow'rs the dire disgrace,
And nobly spit in the offender's face.
Thus a large dumpling to its cell confin'd
(A very apt allusion to my mind),
Lies snug, until the water waxeth hot,
Then bustles 'midst the tempest of the pot:
In vain!--the lid keeps down the child of dough,
That bouncing, tumbling, sweating, rolls below.
(pp. 11-2 in 1785 edition)",Canto I,2014-03-03 18:19:21 UTC
15216,"","",,"""I would not hear / Aught else disturb the silent reign of death, / Save the dull ticking of a lazy clock. / That calls me home, and leads the pious soul / Through mazes of reflection, till she feels / For whom and why she lives""",2006-11-16 00:00:00 UTC,Searching HDIS (Poetry),
,5685,"So have I gone at night,
When the faint eye of day was hardly clos'd,
And turn'd the grating key which kept the door
Of church or chapel, to enjoy alone
The mournful horrors, which impending night
And painted windows shed along the dark
And scarce to be distinguish'd aisle. My foot
Has stood and paus'd, half startled at the sound
Of its own tip-toe pace. I've held my breath,
And been offended that my nimble heart
Should throb so audibly. I would not hear
Aught else disturb the silent reign of death,
Save the dull ticking of a lazy clock.
That calls me home, and leads the pious soul
Through mazes of reflection, till she feels
For whom and why she lives. Ye timid fair,
I never saw the sheeted ghost steal by,
I never heard th' unprison'd dead complain
And gibber in my ear, though I have lov'd
The yawning time of night, and travell'd round
And round again the mansions of the dead.
Yet have I heard, what fancy well might deem
Sufficient proof of both, the prowling owl
Sweep by, and with a hideous shriek awake
The church-yard echo, and I too have stood
Harrow'd and speechless at the dismal sound.
But here she frays us not. Such scenes as these
No ghost frequents. If any spirits here,
They are as gentle as the eve of day,
And only come to turn our wand'ring steps
From lurking danger. With what easy grace
This footway winds about! Shew me designs
That please us more. What strict geometer
Can carve his yew, his quickset, or his box,
To half its elegance? I would not see
A thousand paces forward, nor be led
Through mazes ever serpentine. Let art
Be hid in nature. Wind the flow'ry path,
But be not bound to follow Hogarth's line.
I grant it beauty; but, too often seen,
That beauty pleases not. I love to meet
A sudden turn like this, which stops me short,
Extravagantly devious, and invites
Or up the hill or down; then winds again,
By reeling drunkard trod, and sudden ends
In a green swarded wain-way, not unlike
Cathedral aisle completely roof'd with boughs,
Which stretching up-hill through the gloomy wood
Displays at either end a giant door
Wide open'd. Travel not the steep, nor tread
With hardly sensible advance the hill
Which baffles expedition. Gaze awhile
At the still view below, the living scene
Inimitable nature has hung up
At the vault's end, then disappear again,
And follow still the flexile path, conceal'd
In shady underwood. Nor sometimes scorn
Under the high majestic oak to sit,
And comment on his leaf, his branch, his arm
Paternally extended, his vast girth,
And ample hoop above. To him who loves
To walk with contemplation, ev'ry leaf
Affords a tale concluding with a moral.
The very hazel has a tongue to teach,
The birch, the maple, horn-beam, beech, and ash.","",2009-09-14 19:43:03 UTC
16360,Coinage,"",2007-04-26,"""But let me give his m*****y a hint, / Fresh from my brain's prolific mint.""",2005-04-14 00:00:00 UTC,"Searching ""brain"" and ""mint"" in HDIS (Poetry); confirmed in ECCO.","",6183,"
But let me give his m*****y a hint,
Fresh from my brain's prolific mint--
Suppose we Amateurs should, in a fury,
Just take it in our John-Bull heads to say
(And lo! 'tis very probable we may)--
'We will have oratorios at Drury?'
","",2014-03-03 18:05:57 UTC
17981,Fetters,"",2011-05-26,"""Add to this, that, whenever you sell the liberty of a man, you have the power only of alluding to the body: the mind cannot be confined or bound: it will be free, though its mansion be beset with chains.""",2010-07-20 20:56:34 UTC,Contributed by Dorothy Couchman,"Mixed metaphor: mansion chained. (The body here is chained, not the mind?)",6753,"We may consider also, as a farther confirmation, that it is impossible, in the nature of things, that liberty can be bought or sold! It is neither saleable, nor purchasable. For if any one man can have an absolute property in the liberty of another, or, in other words, if he, who is called a master, can have a just right to command the actions of him, who is called a slave, it is evident that the latter cannot be accountable for those crimes, which the former may order him to commit. Now as every reasonable being is accountable for his actions, it is evident, that such a right cannot justly exist, and that human liberty, of course, is beyond the possibility either of sale or purchase. Add to this, that, whenever you sell the liberty of a man, you have the power only of alluding to the body: the mind cannot be confined or bound: it will be free, though its mansion be beset with chains. But if, in every sale of the human species, you are under the necessity of considering your slave in this abstracted light; of alluding only to the body, and of making no allusion to the mind; you are under the necessity also of treating him, in the same moment, as a brute, and of abusing therefore that nature, which cannot otherwise be considered, than in the double capacity of soul and body.
(II.iv, pp. 70-1)","Part II, Chap. IV",2011-05-26 19:17:16 UTC