"This comes to acquaint you, That my dear Spouse is taken sick, of a sudden, and stands in need, to the utmost Degree, of that Experience in Mind-Midwifery, which you gave out Bills about, in your XXVIIth Paper."

— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)


Place of Publication
London
Date
Monday, July 13, 1724
Metaphor
"This comes to acquaint you, That my dear Spouse is taken sick, of a sudden, and stands in need, to the utmost Degree, of that Experience in Mind-Midwifery, which you gave out Bills about, in your XXVIIth Paper."
Metaphor in Context
This comes to acquaint you, That my dear Spouse is taken sick, of a sudden, and stands in need, to the utmost Degree, of that Experience in Mind-Midwifery, which you gave out Bills about, in your XXVIIth Paper.--Pray, let Doctor Jyngle be sent for, immediately: And beg him to come away, whether his Chariot is brought home or no.--We must have him, though he comes in a Wheel-barrow.--The Bearer knows how to bring him: And, pray, let his Emetics be such as will work deep, and fetch up Choler, as well as Flegm.--Rageing Jealousy is the Distemper: And, if the Bitter, and Green, and Yellow, that lie as low as my poor Fubsy's Heart, is not, all, brought away by it, he had e'en as good give her a Caudle.

But, unless Doctor Jyngle has better Physick, for sick Minds, than those Poetical Pills, which you prescribe, out of the Classical Dispensatory, I shall have little Faith in his Modus of Practising.--I have try'd, to no Purpose, an admirable Modern Doctor, who has given us finer Recipe's of that Kind, for Cure of either the Hot or Cold Fits of Jealousy, than the whole College of your Ancients, Greeks, and Romans, put together.--I love him at my Heart, and have most of his Lectures without Book. And, I am sure, he is profoundly skill'd in my dear Love's Distemper, by this feeling Force, with which he speaks of it:

Oh, Jealousy!--All other Storms are Calms
To Thee!--Thou Conflagration of the Soul!
(pp. 273-4)
Provenance
ECCO-TCP
Citation
At least 3 entries in the ESTC (1725, 1730, 1734)

Printed semiweekly. Monday, March 23, 1723-1724 to Friday, May 7, 1725. <Link to ESTC>

Text from The Plain Dealer: Being Select Essays on Several Curious Subjects: Relating to Friendship, ... Poetry, and Other Branches of Polite Literature. Publish'd originally in the year 1724. And Now First Collected into Two Volumes (London: Printed for S. Richardson, and A. Wilde, 1730.) <Link to Vol. I in ECCO-TCP><Link to Vol. II in ECCO-TCP>
Date of Entry
08/17/2013

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