updated_at,id,text,theme,metaphor,work_id,reviewed_on,provenance,created_at,comments,context,dictionary
2009-09-14 19:33:39 UTC,8586,"Whether some great, supreme, o'er-ruling Power
Stretch'd forth its arm at Nature's natal hour,
Composed this mighty Whole with plastic skill,
Wielding the jarring elements at will?
Or whether sprung from Chaos' mingling storm,
The mass of matter started into form?
Or Chance o'er earth's green lap spontaneous fling
The fruits of autumn and the flowers of spring?
Whether material substance unrefined,
Owns the strong impulse of instinctive mind,
Which to one centre points diverging lines,
Confounds, refracts, invig'rates, and combines?
Whether the joys of earth, the hopes of heaven,
By man to God, or God to man, were given?
If virtue leads to bliss, or vice to woe?
Who rules above? or who reside below?""
Vain questions all--shall man presume to know?
On all these points, and points obscure as these,
Think they who will,--and think whate'er they please!","","""Whether material substance unrefined, / Owns the strong impulse of instinctive mind, / Which to one centre points diverging lines, / Confounds, refracts, invig'rates, and combines?""",3319,,"Searching ""mind"" and ""line"" in HDIS (Prose)",2005-05-11 00:00:00 UTC,"","",""
2013-09-23 17:53:52 UTC,17248,"In the character of his Elegy I rejoice to concur with the common reader; for by the common sense of readers uncorrupted with literary prejudices, after all the refinements of subtilty and the dogmatism of learning, must be finally decided all claim to poetical honours. The Church-yard abounds with images which find a mirrour in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo. The four stanzas beginning ""Yet even these bones"" are to me original: I have never seen the notions in any other place; yet he that reads them here persuades himself that he has always felt them. Had Gray written often thus it had been vain to blame, and useless to praise him.",Mirror,"""The Church-yard abounds with images which find a mirrour in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo.""",6482,,Reading; found again searching in ECCO-TCP,2009-02-15 00:00:00 UTC,"Quoted in See The Poetical Works: of Thomas Gray. With the Life of the Author. Cooke's edition. Embellished with Superb Engravings. (London: Printed for C. Cooke, 1799), xxiv. <Link to ECCO-TCP>
","",Mirror
2009-09-14 19:49:20 UTC,17267,"The thoughts which are occasionally called forth in the progress are such as could only be produced by an imagination in the highest degree fervid and active, to which materials were supplied by incessant study and unlimited curiosity. The heat of Milton's mind might be said to sublimate his learning, to throw off into his work the spirit of science, unmingled with its grosser parts.","","""The heat of Milton's mind might be said to sublimate his learning, to throw off into his work the spirit of science, unmingled with its grosser parts.""",6495,,Reading,2009-03-04 00:00:00 UTC,"","",""
2009-09-14 19:49:38 UTC,17273,"Here is a full display of the united force of study and genius; of a great accumulation of materials, with judgement to digest and fancy to combine them: Milton was able to select from nature or from story, from ancient fable or from modern science, whatever could illustrate or adorn his thoughts. An accumulation of knowledge impregnated his mind, fermented by study and exalted by imagination.","","""An accumulation of knowledge impregnated his mind, fermented by study and exalted by imagination.""",6495,,Reading,2009-03-04 00:00:00 UTC,"Footnote in Samuel Johnson: Selected Poetry and Prose reads ""Fermented (brewed) and exalted (refined) are used in a quasi-chemical sense"" (438n).","",""
2011-04-30 16:37:31 UTC,18354,"It is surely not difficult, in the solitude of a college or in the bustle of the world, to find useful studies and serious employment. No man needs to be so burthened with life as to squander it in voluntary dreams of fictitious occurrences. The man that sits down to suppose himself charged with treason or peculation, and heats his mind to an elaborate purgation of his character from crimes which he was never within the possibility of committing, differs only by the infrequency of his folly from him who praises beauty which he never saw, complains of jealousy which he never felt, supposes himself sometimes invited and sometimes forsaken, fatigues his fancy, and ransacks his memory, for images which may exhibit the gaiety of hope or the gloominess of despair, and dresses his imaginary Chloris or Phyllis sometimes in flowers fading as her beauty, and sometimes in gems lasting as her virtues.","","""The man that sits down to suppose himself charged with treason or peculation, and heats his mind to an elaborate purgation of his character from crimes which he was never within the possibility of committing, differs only by the infrequency of his folly from him who praises beauty which he never saw, complains of jealousy which he never felt, supposes himself sometimes invited and sometimes forsaken, fatigues his fancy, and ransacks his memory, for images which may exhibit the gaiety of hope or the gloominess of despair, and dresses his imaginary Chloris or Phyllis sometimes in flowers fading as her beauty, and sometimes in gems lasting as her virtues.""",6836,,Reading,2011-04-30 16:37:31 UTC,"","",""
2011-04-30 16:47:02 UTC,18357,"The Chronicle is a composition unrivalled and alone: such gaiety of fancy, such facility of expression, such varied similitude, such a succession of images, and such a dance of words, it is vain to expect except from Cowley. His strength always appears in his agility; his volatility is not the flutter of a light, but the bound of an elastick mind. His levity never leaves his learning behind it; the moralist, the politician, and the critick, mingle their influence even in this airy frolick of genius. To such a performance Suckling could have brought the gaiety, but not the knowledge; Dryden could have supplied the knowledge, but not the gaiety.","","""His strength always appears in his agility; his volatility is not the flutter of a light, but the bound of an elastick mind.""",6836,,Reading,2011-04-30 16:47:02 UTC,"","",""
2011-10-20 16:15:24 UTC,19277,"The Universal Passion is indeed a very great performance. It is said to be a series of Epigrams; but, if it be, it is what the author intended: his endeavour was at the production of striking distichs and pointed sentences; and his distichs have the weight of solid sentiment, and his points the sharpness of resistless truth. His characters are often selected with discernment, and drawn with nicety; his illustrations are often happy, and his reflections often just. His species of satire is between those of Horace and Juvenal; and he has the gaiety of Horace without his laxity of numbers, and the morality of Juvenal with greater variation of images. He plays, indeed, only on the surface of life; he never penetrates the recesses of the mind, and therefore the whole power of his poetry is exhausted by a single perusal; his conceits please only when they surprise.
(pp. 105-6)","","""He [Young] plays, indeed, only on the surface of life; he never penetrates the recesses of the mind, and therefore the whole power of his poetry is exhausted by a single perusal; his conceits please only when they surprise.""",7117,,Reading,2011-10-20 16:15:24 UTC,"","",""
2012-02-28 18:04:16 UTC,19596,"The variable weather of the mind, the flying vapours of incipient madness, which from time to time cloud reason, without eclipsing it, it requires so much nicety to exhibit, that Addison seems to have been deterred from prosecuting his own design.","","""The variable weather of the mind, the flying vapours of incipient madness, which from time to time cloud reason, without eclipsing it, it requires so much nicety to exhibit, that Addison seems to have been deterred from prosecuting his own design.""",7192,,Reading,2012-02-28 18:04:16 UTC,"","",""