"With curious art the brain, too finely wrought, / Preys on herself, and is destroy'd by thought"
— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for the Author
Date
1763
Metaphor
"With curious art the brain, too finely wrought, / Preys on herself, and is destroy'd by thought"
Metaphor in Context
Sure 'tis a curse which angry fates impose,
To mortify man's arrogance, that those
Who're fashion'd of some better sort of clay,
Much sooner than the common herd decay.
What bitter pangs must humbled Genius feel,
In their last hours, to view a Swift and Steele!
How must ill-boding horrors fill her breast
When she beholds men mark'd above the rest
For qualities most dear, plunged from that height,
And sunk, deep sunk, in second childhood's night!
Are men, indeed, such things? and are the best
More subject to this evil than the rest,
To drivel out whole years of idiot breath,
And sit the monuments of living death!
O, galling circumstance to human pride!
Abasing thought! but not to be denied.
With curious art the brain, too finely wrought,
Preys on herself, and is destroy'd by thought.
Constant attention wears the active mind,
Blots out our powers, and leaves a blank behind.
But let not youth, to insolence allied,
In heat of blood, in full career of pride,
Possess'd of genius, with unhallow'd rage
Mock the infirmities of reverend age:
The greatest genius to this fate may bow;
Reynolds, in time, may be like Hogarth now.
To mortify man's arrogance, that those
Who're fashion'd of some better sort of clay,
Much sooner than the common herd decay.
What bitter pangs must humbled Genius feel,
In their last hours, to view a Swift and Steele!
How must ill-boding horrors fill her breast
When she beholds men mark'd above the rest
For qualities most dear, plunged from that height,
And sunk, deep sunk, in second childhood's night!
Are men, indeed, such things? and are the best
More subject to this evil than the rest,
To drivel out whole years of idiot breath,
And sit the monuments of living death!
O, galling circumstance to human pride!
Abasing thought! but not to be denied.
With curious art the brain, too finely wrought,
Preys on herself, and is destroy'd by thought.
Constant attention wears the active mind,
Blots out our powers, and leaves a blank behind.
But let not youth, to insolence allied,
In heat of blood, in full career of pride,
Possess'd of genius, with unhallow'd rage
Mock the infirmities of reverend age:
The greatest genius to this fate may bow;
Reynolds, in time, may be like Hogarth now.
Categories
Provenance
Searching "blank" and "mind" in HDIS (Poetry)
Citation
9 entries in ESTC (1763, 1765, 1766, 1769).
See An Epistle to William Hogarth, 2nd edition (London: Printed for the Author, 1763). <Link to ESTC>
Text from Poems of Charles Churchill, ed. James Laver. 2 vols. (London: The King's Printers, 1933).
See An Epistle to William Hogarth, 2nd edition (London: Printed for the Author, 1763). <Link to ESTC>
Text from Poems of Charles Churchill, ed. James Laver. 2 vols. (London: The King's Printers, 1933).
Date of Entry
03/02/2005
