"If not with Prejudice, and Passion blind, / In Reason's Glass, you will your Error find. / Search the Recesses of the human Soul, / Mark there, what secret Springs her Acts controul."

— Marriott, Thomas (d. 1766)


Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for W. Owen
Date
1759
Metaphor
"If not with Prejudice, and Passion blind, / In Reason's Glass, you will your Error find. / Search the Recesses of the human Soul, / Mark there, what secret Springs her Acts controul."
Metaphor in Context
[...] Beware of Self-deceit, that wily cheat,
Which blinds bright Intellect with vain Conceit;
Conceit sees Nothing in its real Light,
All Things alike delude its cheated Sight.
If not with Prejudice, and Passion blind,
In Reason's Glass, you will your Error find.
Search the Recesses of the human Soul,
Mark there, what secret Springs her Acts controul
;
What near Resemblance, Vice to Virtue bears,
How deep Ambition, mask'd in patriot Cares,
Of public Spirit, the Appearance wears. [...]
(pp. 84-5)
Provenance
ECCO
Citation
3 entries in ESTC (1759, 1760, 1775).

Text from Female Conduct: Being an Essay on the Art of Pleasing. To Be Practised by the Fair Sex, Before, and After Marriage. A Poem, in Two Books. Humbly Dedicated, to Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales. Inscribed to Plautilla. by Thomas Marriott, Esq. (London: Printed for W. Owen, at Homer's Head, Temple-Bar, 1759). <Link to ECCO>
Date of Entry
10/28/2013

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