"Vice is a Thief, a Traytor in the Mind, / Assassinates the Vitals of Mankind."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)


Place of Publication
London
Date
1702
Metaphor
"Vice is a Thief, a Traytor in the Mind, / Assassinates the Vitals of Mankind."
Metaphor in Context
Vertue's a native Rectitude of Mind,
Vice the Degeneracy of Human Kind:
Vertue is Wisdom Solid and Divine,
Vice is all Fool without, and Knave within:
Vertue is Honour circumscrib'd by Grace,
Vice is made up of every thing that's base:
Vertue has secret Charms which all Men love,
And those that do not choose her, yet approve:
Vice like ill Pictures which offend the Eye,
Make those that made them their own Works deny:
Vertue 's the Health and Vigour of the Soul,
Vice is the foul Disease infects the whole:
Vertue 's the Friend of Life, and Soul of Health,
The Poor Man's Comfort, and the Rich Man's Wealth:
Vice is a Thief, a Traytor in the Mind,
Assassinates the Vitals of Mankind;
The Poison of his high Prosperity,
And only Misery of Poverty.
(Part II, pp. 363-4, ll. 451-468; pp. 45-6 in 1702 ed.)
Provenance
C-H Lion
Citation
At least 10 entries in ECCO and ESTC (1702, 1703, 1716, 1721).

Text from Poems on Affairs of State (London Printed for Thomas Tebb and Theoph. Sanders, Edw. Symon, and Francis Clay, 1697-1716). See vol. 2, printed in the year 1703. <Link to ECCO>

See also Daniel, Defoe, Reformation of Manners, A Satyr (London, 1702). <Link to ECCO>
Date of Entry
07/11/2013

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.