work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
3633,"","Reading. Found again in Margaret Doody's The Daring Muse: Augustan Poetry Reconsidered (Cambridge: CUP, 1985), 8. And again, Martin Kallich, ""The Association of Ideas and Critical Theory: Hobbes, Locke, and Addison"" ELH 12:4 (1945): 295n.
",2004-01-26 00:00:00 UTC,"The composition of all poems is or ought to be of wit, and wit in the poet, or wit writing (if you will give me leave to use a school distinction), is no other than the faculty of imagination in the writer, which, like a nimble spaniel, beats over and ranges through the field of memory, till it springs the quarry it hunted after; or, without metaphor, which searches over all the memory for the species or ideas of those things which it designs to represent. Wit written, is that which is well defined the happy result of thought, or product of that imagination. But to proceed from wit in the general notion of it to the proper wit of an heroic or historical poem, I judge it chiefly to consist in the delightful imaging of persons, actions, passions, or things.'Tis not the jerk or sting of an epigram, nor the seeming contradiction of a poor antithesis (the delight of an ill-judging audience in a play of rhyme), nor the jingle of a more poor paranomasia: neither is it so much the morality of a grave sentence, affected by Lucan, but more sparingly used by Virgil; but it is some lively and apt description, dressed in such colours of speech, that it sets before youre eyes the absent object as perfectly and more delightfully than nature. so then, the first happiness of the poet's imagination is properly invention, or finding of the thought; the second is fancy or the variation, driving or moulding of that thought, as the judgement represents it proper to the subject; the third is elocution, or that art of clothing and adorning that thought so found and varied, in apt, significant, and sounding words: the quickness of the imagination is seen in the invention, the fertility in the fancy, and the accuracy in the expression. For the two first of these Ovid is famous amongst the poets, for the latter Virgil. Ovid images more often the movements and affections of the mind, either combating between two contrary passions, or extremely discomposed by one: his words therefore are the least part of his care, for he pictures nature in disorder, with which the study and choice of words is inconsistent. This is the proper wit of dialogue or discourse, and consequently, of the drama, where all that is said is to be supposed the effect of sudden thought; which, though it excludes not the quickness of wit in repartees, yet admits not a too curious election of words, too frequent allusions, or use of tropes, or, in fine, anything that shows remoteness of thought, or labour in the writer. On the other side, Virgil speaks not so often to us in the person of another, like Ovid, but in his own; he relates almost all things as from himself, and thereby gains more liberty than the other to express his thoughts with all the graces of elocution, to write more figuratively, and to confess as well the labour as the force of his imagination.
(pp. 26-7 in Walker's edition) ",2012-01-28,9431,"•Dryden calls it a metaphor, but it looks like a simile to me! META-METAPHORICAL.
2008-12-03","""The composition of all poems is or ought to be of wit, and wit in the poet, or wit writing (if you will give me leave to use a school distinction), is no other than the faculty of imagination in the writer, which, like a nimble spaniel, beats over and ranges through the field of memory, till it springs the quarry it hunted after; or, without metaphor, which searches over all the memory for the species or ideas of those things which it designs to represent.""","",2012-01-28 20:00:55 UTC,""
3688,"","searching ""soliloquy"" in EEBO",2004-03-24 00:00:00 UTC,"A Weak mind complains before it is overtaken with evil, and as Birds are affrighted with the noise of the Sling, so the infirm soul anticipates its troubles by its own fearful apprehensions, and falls under them before they are yet arrived. But what greater madness is there, than to be tormented with futurities, and not so much to reserve our selves to miseries against they come, as to invite and hasten them towards us of our own accord? The best remedy against this tottering state of the soul, is a good and clear Conscience; which if a man want, he will tremble in the midst of all his armed guards
(p. 437)",2009-07-31,9553,"","""A Weak mind complains before it is overtaken with evil, and as Birds are affrighted with the noise of the Sling, so the infirm soul anticipates its troubles by its own fearful apprehensions, and falls under them before they are yet arrived.""","",2014-02-05 14:54:43 UTC,""
3866,"",Reading Nidditch's edition of Locke's Essay,2003-09-04 00:00:00 UTC,"Reader,
I here put into thy Hands, what has been the diversion of some of my idle and heavy Hours: If it has the good luck to prove so of any of thine, and thou hast half so much Pleasure in reading, as I had in writing it, thou wilt as little think thy Money, as I do my Pains, ill bestowed. Mistake not this, for Commendation of my Work; nor conclude, because I was pleased with the doing of it, that therefore I am fondly taken with it now it is done. He that hawks at larks and Sparrows, has no less Sport, though a much less considerable Quarry, than he that flies at nobler Game: And he is little acquainted with the Subject of this Treatise, the UNDERSTANDING, who does not know that as it is the most elevated Faculty of the Soul, so it is employed with a greater, and more constant Delight than any of the other. Its searches after Truth, are a sort of Hawking and Hunting, wherein the very pursuit makes a great part of the Pleasure. Every step the Mind takes in its Progress towards Knowledge, makes some Discovery, which is not only new, but the best too, for the time at least.
(Epistle to the Reader, p. 6)",,9920,"•Note the Lockean qualification: ""a sort of."" Is this a personification? (A kind of ""as it were."")","The Understanding's ""searches after Truth, are a sort of Hawking and Hunting, wherein the very pursuit makes a great part of the Pleasure""",Beasts,2009-09-14 19:34:34 UTC,The Epistle to the Reader (Opening Epistle)
3866,"",Reading,2003-09-15 00:00:00 UTC,"But yet, I cannot but think, there is some small dull Perception, whereby they are distinguished from perfect Insensibility. And that this may be so, we have plain instances, even in Mankind it self. Take one, in whom decrepid old Age has blotted out the Memory of his past Knowledge, and clearly wiped out the Ideas his Mind was formerly stored with; and has, by destroying his Sight, Hearing, and Smell quite, and his Taste to a great degree, stopp'd up almost all the Passages for new ones to enter; or, if there be some Inlets yet half open, the Impressions made are scarce perceived, or not at all retained. How far such an one (notwithstanding all that is boasted of innate Principles) is in his Knowledge, and intellectual Faculties, above the Condition of a Cockle, or an Oyster, I leave to be considered. And if a Man had passed Sixty Years in such a State, as 'tis possible he might, as well as three Days, I wonder what difference there would have been, in any intellectual Perfections, between him, and the lowest degree of Animals.
(II.ix.10)",2004-02-16,9957,Perception as an inlet: Man as oyster,"""How far such an one [one in whom ""decrepid old Age"" has blotted out Memory] (notwithstanding all that is boasted of innate Principles) is in his Knowledge, and intellectual Faculties, above the Condition of a Cockle, or an Oyster, I leave to be considered.""",Animals,2013-06-11 16:23:44 UTC,II.ix.10
3866,Interiority,"Searching ""mole"" in Past Masters",2006-05-22 00:00:00 UTC,"First; all the simple ideas we have, are confined (as I have shown) to those we receive from corporeal objects by sensation, and from the operations of our own minds as the objects of reflection. But how much these few and narrow inlets are disproportionate to the vast whole extent of all beings, will not be hard to persuade those, who are not so foolish as to think their span the measure of all things. What other simple ideas it is possible the creatures in other parts of the universe may have, by the assistance of senses and faculties more, or perfecter, than we have, or different from ours, it is not for us to determine. But to say, or think there are no such, because we conceive nothing of them, is no better an argument, than if a blind man should be positive in it, that there was no such thing as sight and colours, because he had no manner of idea of any such thing, nor could by any means frame to himself any notions about seeing. The ignorance and darkness that is in us, no more hinders nor confines the knowledge that is in others, than the blindness of a mole is an argument against the quicksightedness of an eagle. He that will consider the infinite power, wisdom, and goodness of the Creator of all things, will find reason to think it was not all laid out upon so inconsiderable, mean, and impotent a creature as he will find man to be; who, in all probability, is one of the lowest of all intellectual beings. What faculties therefore other species of creatures have, to penetrate into the nature and inmost constitutions of things; what ideas they may receive of them, far different from ours; we know not. This we know, and certainly find, that we want several other views of them, besides those we have, to make discoveries of them more perfect. And we may be convinced that the ideas we can attain to by our faculties, are very disproportionate to things themselves, when a positive, clear, distinct one of substance itself, which is the foundation of all the rest, is concealed from us. But want of ideas of this kind being a part, as well as cause of our ignorance, cannot be described. Only this, I think, I may confidently say of it, that the intellectual and sensible world are in this perfectly alike; that that part, which we see of either of them, holds no proportion with what we see not; and whatsoever we can reach with our eyes, or our thoughts of either of them, is but a point, almost nothing in comparison of the rest.",,10014,"","""The ignorance and darkness that is in us, no more hinders nor confines the knowledge that is in others, than the blindness of a mole is an argument against the quicksightedness of an eagle""",Beasts,2009-09-14 19:34:39 UTC,IV.iii.23
3617,"","Whitman, James Q. The origins of reasonable doubt: theological roots of the criminal trial. Yale UP, 2008. p. 179. <Link to Google Books>
",2010-01-13 20:37:45 UTC,"2. Against a doubting conscience a man may not work but against a scrupulous he may. For a scrupulous conscience does not take away the proper determination of the understanding; but it is like a Woman handling of a Frog or a Chicken, which, all their friends tell them, can do them no hurt, and they are convinced in reason that they cannot, they believe it and know it ; and yet when they take the little creature into their hands, they shreek, and sometimes hold fast, and find their fears confuted, and sometimes they let go, and find their reason useless.
(p. 160)",,17674,"","""For a scrupulous conscience does not take away the proper determination of the understanding; but it is like a Woman handling of a Frog or a Chicken, which, all their friends tell them, can do them no hurt, and they are convinced in reason that they cannot, they believe it and know it ; and yet when they take the little creature into their hands, they shreek, and sometimes hold fast, and find their fears confuted, and sometimes they let go, and find their reason useless.""","",2010-01-13 20:38:13 UTC,"Book I, Chapter 6, Rule II"
7102,"",Reading,2011-09-27 03:05:02 UTC,"Mortification of our lusts and passions, tho, like repentance, it has something in it that is troublesome, yet nothing that is unreasonable, or really to our prejudice. If we give way to our Passions, we do but gratify our selves for the present, in order to our future disquiet; but if we resist and conquer them, we lay the foundation of perpetual peace and tranquillity in our minds. If we govern ourselves in the use of sensual delight, by the Laws of God and reason, we shall find ourselves more at ease than if we should let loose the reins to our appetites and lusts. For the more we gratify our lusts, the more craving they will be, and the more impatient of denial. Crescit indulgens sibi dirus hydrops, every lust is a kind of hydropick distemper, and the more we drink the more we shall thirst. So that by retrenching our inordinate desires we do not rob ourselves of any true pleasure, but only prevent the pain and trouble of farther dissatisfaction.
(p. 72; cf. pp. 219-220 in 1694 edition)",,19208,"","""If we govern ourselves in the use of sensual delight, by the Laws of God and reason, we shall find ourselves more at ease than if we should let loose the reins to our appetites and lusts.""",Beasts and Court,2014-01-22 16:01:14 UTC,Sermon VI.
7256,"","Reading Irvin Ehrenpreis, Swift: The Man, His Works, and the Age, 2 vols. (1962, reprinted Harvard UP, 1983), I, 234.",2012-05-11 15:59:19 UTC,"I Was not a little surpriz'd at the length of your Second Letter, considering the shortness of the Answer contained in it: But it put me in mind of the Springs of ModenĂ¡ mention'd by Ramazzini, which rise up with such a plenty of Water upon opening a Passage, that the Undertaker is afraid of being overwhelm'd by it. I see how dangerous it is to give occasion to a Person of such a fruitfull Invention to write; for Letters become Books, and small Books will soon rise to great Volumes, if no way be found to give a Check to such an Ebullition of Thoughts, as some Men find within themselves. I was apt to think the best way were, to let Nature spend it self; and although those who write out of their own Thoughts do it with as much Ease and Pleasure as a Spider spins his Web; yet the World soon grows weary of Controversies, especially when they are about Personal Matters: Which made me wonder that one who understands the World so well, should spend above fifty Pages of a Letter in renewing and enlarging a Complaint wholly concerning himself. Suppose I had born a little too hard upon you in joyning your Words and anothers Intentions together; had it not been an easie and effectual way of clearing your self, to have declared to the World, that you owned the Doctrine of the Trinity, as it hath been Received in the Christian Church, and is by ours in the Creeds and Articles of Religion? This had stopt the Mouths of the Clamorous, and had removed the Suspicions of the Doubtfull, and would have given full Satisfaction to all reasonable Men. But when you so carefully avoid doing this, all other Arts and Evasions do but leave the Matter more suspicious among the most Intelligent and Impartial Readers. This I mention, not that you need be afraid of the Inquisition, or that I intend to charge you with Heresie in denying the Trinity; but my present Design is to shew, That your Mind is so intangled and set fast by your Notion of Ideas, that you know not what to make of the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation; because you can have no Idea of One Nature and three Persons, nor of two Natures and one Person; as will fully appear afterwards. And therefore, out of regard to Publick Service, in order to the preventing a growing Mischief, I shall endeavour to lay open the ill Consequences of your Way of Ideas with respect to the Articles of the Christian Faith.
(pp. 3-5)",,19769,"","""I was apt to think the best way were, to let Nature spend it self; and although those who write out of their own Thoughts do it with as much Ease and Pleasure as a Spider spins his Web; yet the World soon grows weary of Controversies, especially when they are about Personal Matters.""",Beasts,2012-05-11 15:59:19 UTC,""
3949,"",Reading,2013-11-23 16:11:55 UTC,"THERE is no body who has consider'd ever so little the nature of the sensible part, the Soul or Mind, but knows that in the same manner as without action, motion and employment, the Body languishes and is oppress'd, its Nourishment grows the matter and food of Disease, the Spirits unconsum'd help to consume the Body, and Nature as it were preys upon it self; so also that sensible and living part, the Soul or Mind, wanting its proper and natural exercise, is burden'd, and diseas'd; and its Thoughts and Passions being unnaturally witheld from their due Objects, turn against it self, and create the highest impatience. For the Mind or Soul, which more than the Body requires agitation and exercise, cannot be but in a state of Feeling or Passion, of some kind, and under some certain Affection or other: if not under such Affection as may fitly employ it in proportionable and fit subject; yet however under such as will make it a burden, disease and torment to it self.
(p. 140 in 1699 edition)",,23307,"Text from EEBO. Note later publication is more vivid: ""the Spirits, unimploy'd abroad, help to consume the Parts within; and Nature, as it were, preys upon her-self"" (213) in Klein's edition.","""There is no body who has consider'd ever so little the nature of the sensible part, the Soul or Mind, but knows that in the same manner as without action, motion and employment, the Body languishes and is oppress'd, its Nourishment grows the matter and food of Disease, the Spirits unconsum'd help to consume the Body, and Nature as it were preys upon it self.""",Animals,2013-11-23 16:14:58 UTC,""
7988,"",Reading,2014-07-28 18:21:12 UTC,"Wherefore, when a Man hath once rendred this way of Thinking, familiar, sometimes the subject of his Meditation will lead him to Thoughts, and excite Affections, full of Serenity, and Joy, like those fair Mornings, where the cloudless Beams, and cherishing warmth of the Sun, inviting the Lark to aspire towards Heaven, make her at once mount, and sing; and when the Mind is rais'd to such a welcome and elevated state, to listen to an ordinary Temptation, a Man must forgo his Pleasure, as well as violate his Duty, and in the difference betwixt the Imployment that busies him, and that whereto he is sollicited to stoop, he will easily discern, that his Innocence will not be the onely thing that he would lose by so disadvantageous a Change; And sometimes too, whether or no the Imployment that busies his Thoughts, happen to be so delightful, it will however appear to be so considerable, that it will seasonably furnish him with that excellent Answer of Nehemiah, to those that would have diverted him from building of the Temple, to come to a Treaty with them, I am doing a great Work, (and such indeed is the serving God, and the improving the Mind, whether we consider its Importance, or its Difficulty) so that I cannot come down; why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you? Which last Expression suits very well with the present case, since, when a pious Soul is once got upon the wing of Contemplation, she must descend and stoop to exchange her converse with Heavenly objects, for one with Earthly vanities, and much more must she debase and degrade her self, if the things she is tempted to, be Lusts, which she will thence clearly discern, to be as Low as the Hell they belong to, and deserve.
(pp. 6-7)",,24335,"","""Which last Expression suits very well with the present case, since, when a pious Soul is once got upon the wing of Contemplation, she must descend and stoop to exchange her converse with Heavenly objects, for one with Earthly vanities, and much more must she debase and degrade her self, if the things she is tempted to, be Lusts, which she will thence clearly discern, to be as Low as the Hell they belong to, and deserve.""","",2014-07-28 18:21:12 UTC,""