"In correcting a Servant, he never us'd to be a Slave to his own Passions, common Justice, Reason, Pity and Humanity, as well as the Chamberlain, hindring him from making new Indentures on the Flesh of his Apprentice, though he might happen in some light instances to break the old."

— Dunton, John (1659-1732)


Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for Richard Newcome
Date
1691
Metaphor
"In correcting a Servant, he never us'd to be a Slave to his own Passions, common Justice, Reason, Pity and Humanity, as well as the Chamberlain, hindring him from making new Indentures on the Flesh of his Apprentice, though he might happen in some light instances to break the old."
Metaphor in Context
In correcting a Servant, he never us'd to be a Slave to his own Passions, common Justice, Reason, Pity and Humanity, as well as the Chamberlain, hindring him from making new Indentures on the Flesh of his Apprentice, though he might happen in some light instances to break the old. And indeed how many good Servants are that way eternally ruin'd, and for ever unfitted to serve their Countrey after they get out of their time, or their Master before, as certainly Evander himself had been, had his Master gone to work with him as some wicked Wretches in this City have done with their Prentices, ripping up their Guts, beating out their Brains, or whipping 'em to Death, and so undoing 'em for ever. For this reason my good Master wou'd never strike me in the heighth of his Passion, lest my Brains should fly about my Ears, and the stroke rebound upon himself. But when he did find any Servant unlike me, and altogether incorrigible, so that he found it impossible to wash the Blackamore white, and whom he could never induce by Confession or Amendment to scowr out the Spots of his Soul, he'd e'ne fairly wash his hands of him, and turn him a grazing among his Fellow-Cattle.
(II, p. 37)
Categories
Provenance
C-H Lion
Citation
John Dunton, A Voyage Round the World: or, a Pocket-Library, Divided into several Volumes. The First of which contains the Rare Adventures of Don Kainophilus, From his Cradle to his 15th. Year. The like Discoveries in such a Method never made by any Rambler before. The whole Work intermixt with Essays, Historical, Moral and Divine; and all other kinds of Learning. Done into English by a Lover of Travels. Recommended by the Wits of both Universities. 3 vols. (London: Printed for Richard Newcome, 1691). <Link to EEBO-TCP>
Date of Entry
06/18/2013

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