text,updated_at,metaphor,created_at,context,theme,reviewed_on,dictionary,comments,provenance,id,work_id
"Such was Amphion, so his Airs could move,
That the stones danc'd to his soft Songs of Love.
Could I like Pow'r in Charming Numbers use,
(Charming indeed, since you inspire my Muse,)
Soon should your lofty Walls delight our view,
Like their Fair Mistress, high, and pleasing too.
Then should my Verse in softest measures flow,
Soft as those streams which gently glide below.
My Thoughts should like their Silver Fishes shine,
With quick, bright glitterings thro' each moving line.
Then might these Walks afford a Noble Theme.
When like the lovely Paphian Queen you seem,
Presiding here o'er your own Native stream.
Then might I sing how from these Walls, afar
Your Guns, and Eyes subdue in Love and War.
Sing, how we might along your dreaded shore,
Your light'nings view, and hear your thunder roar.
How, like a Goddess, from these Walls on high,
You see your Floods beneath spread out a watry Sky.
How justly those transcend the Silver Thames,
How your bright Eyes play on them with their Beams,
And so Love's Fires rise from the Silver streams.
How they would ne'er flow o'er the flowry meads,
Or any paths where their Fair Mistress treads.
Thus might I sing what thoughts the prospect yields,
Nymphs in the Rivers, Sylvans in the Fields;
Describe the flow'ry Banks, and spreading Groves;
Where Swains, and Virgins, tell their Mutual Loves.
But that the Walks, fond of what once they bore,
When they were Crown'd with your dear Feet no more,
Fell, to complain along the murm'ring shore.
And yet such greatness in their ruins lies,
Their fall, methinks, but makes my fancy rise.
So, when your Beauties (if that time can come)
Shall lose the Sweetness of their present bloom,
Ev'n your decays shall raise our wonder more,
Their Ebbs shall show the vastness of their store,
Which Charm'd Admirers Eyes who saw their tides before.
(pp. 58-9, ll. 1-38)",2014-09-28 16:20:17 UTC,"""My Thoughts should like their Silver Fishes shine, / With quick, bright glitterings thro' each moving line.""",2005-06-03 00:00:00 UTC,I've included the entire poem,"",,"","","Searching ""thought"" and ""silver"" in HDIS (Poetry)",10315,3974
"Having, therefore, so narrowly passed through this intricate difficulty, the reader will, I am sure, agree with me in the conclusion that, if the moderns mean by madness only a disturbance or transposition of the brain, by force of certain vapours issuing up from the lower faculties, then has this madness been the parent of all those mighty revolutions that have happened in empire, in philosophy, and in religion. For the brain in its natural position and state of serenity disposeth its owner to pass his life in the common forms, without any thought of subduing multitudes to his own power, his reasons, or his visions, and the more he shapes his understanding by the pattern of human learning, the less he is inclined to form parties after his particular notions, because that instructs him in his private infirmities, as well as in the stubborn ignorance of the people. But when a man’s fancy gets astride on his reason, when imagination is at cuffs with the senses, and common understanding as well as common sense is kicked out of doors, the first proselyte he makes is himself; and when that is once compassed, the difficulty is not so great in bringing over others, a strong delusion always operating from without as vigorously as from within. For cant and vision are to the ear and the eye the same that tickling is to the touch. Those entertainments and pleasures we most value in life are such as dupe and play the wag with the senses. For if we take an examination of what is generally understood by happiness, as it has respect either to the understanding or the senses we shall find all its properties and adjuncts will herd under this short definition, that it is a perpetual possession of being well deceived. And first, with relation to the mind or understanding, it is manifest what mighty advantages fiction has over truth, and the reason is just at our elbow: because imagination can build nobler scenes and produce more wonderful revolutions than fortune or Nature will be at the expense to furnish. Nor is mankind so much to blame in his choice thus determining him, if we consider that the debate merely lies between things past and things conceived, and so the question is only this: whether things that have place in the imagination may not as properly be said to exist as those that are seated in the memory? which may be justly held in the affirmative, and very much to the advantage of the former, since this is acknowledged to be the womb of things, and the other allowed to be no more than the grave. Again, if we take this definition of happiness and examine it with reference to the senses, it will be acknowledged wonderfully adapt. How sad and insipid do all objects accost us that are not conveyed in the vehicle of delusion! How shrunk is everything as it appears in the glass of Nature, so that if it were not for the assistance of artificial mediums, false lights, refracted angles, varnish, and tinsel, there would be a mighty level in the felicity and enjoyments of mortal men. If this were seriously considered by the world, as I have a certain reason to suspect it hardly will, men would no longer reckon among their high points of wisdom the art of exposing weak sides and publishing infirmities--an employment, in my opinion, neither better nor worse than that of unmasking, which, I think, has never been allowed fair usage, either in the world or the play-house.
(pp. 82-3 in OUP ed.)",2013-09-11 21:32:52 UTC,"""But when a man's fancy gets astride his reason, when imagination is at cuffs with the senses, and common understanding as well as common sense, is kicked out of doors; the first proselyte he makes is himself, and when that is once compassed the difficulty is not so great in bringing over others, a strong delusion always operating from without as vigorously as from within.""",2003-10-21 00:00:00 UTC,"","",2003-10-23,"","•Previous metaphors are replayed in this passage. I haven't extracted them and stored them in their own record.
•I've separated fancy, understanding, and imagination into three separate entries (5/29/2003).",Reading,10426,4024
"Here it may not be amiss to add a few words upon the laudable practice of wearing quilted caps; which is not a matter of mere custom, humour, or fashion, as some would pretend, but an institution of great sagacity and use; these, when moistened with sweat, stop all perspiration, and by reverberating the heat prevent the spirit from evaporating any way but at the mouth: even as a skilful house-wife, that covers her still with a wet clout, for the same reason, and finds the same effect. For, it is the opinion of choice virtuosi, that the brain is only a crowd of little animals, but with teeth and claws extremely sharp, and therefore cling together in the contexture we behold, like the picture of Hobbes's Leviathan, or like bees in perpendicular swarm upon a tree, or like a carrion corrupted into vermin, still preserving the shape and figure of the mother animal; that all invention is formed by the morsure of two or more of these animals, upon certain capillary nerves, which proceed from thence, whereof three branches spread into the tongue, and two into the right hand. They hold also, that these animals are of a constitution extremely cold; that their food is the air we attract, their excrement phlegm; and that what we vulgarly called rheums, and colds, and distillations, is nothing else but an epidemical looseness, to which that little commonwealth is very subject from the climate it lies under. Further, that nothing less than a violent heat can disentangle these creatures from their hamated station of life, or give them vigour and humour to imprint the marks of their little teeth. That, if the morsure be hexagonal, it produces Poetry; the circular gives Eloquence; if the bite hath been conical, the person, whose nerve is so affected, shall be disposed to write upon Politics; and so of the rest.
(pp. 134-5)",2014-07-11 15:38:51 UTC,"""For, it is the opinion of choice virtuosi, that the brain is only a crowd of little animals, but with teeth and claws extremely sharp, and therefore cling together in the contexture we behold, like the picture of Hobbes's Leviathan, or like bees in perpendicular swarm upon a tree, or like a carrion corrupted into vermin, still preserving the shape and figure of the mother animal; that all invention is formed by the morsure of two or more of these animals, upon certain capillary nerves, which proceed from thence, whereof three branches spread into the tongue, and two into the right hand.""",2009-07-09 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,Animals and Inhabitants,"I've included four times: Teeth and Claws, Bees, Vermin, Leviathan. See A Tale of a Tub and Other Works, ed. by A. Ross and D. Woolley, (Oxford UP, 1990), 134.",Reading,17456,6572
"As yet snuffling was not, when the following adventure happened to a Banbury saint. Upon a certain day, while he was far engaged among the tabernacles of the wicked, he felt the outward man put into odd commotions, and strangely pricked forward by the inward; an effect very usual among the modern inspired. For, some think that the spirit is apt to feed on the flesh, like hungry wines upon raw beef. Others rather believe there is a perpetual game at leap-frog between both, and sometimes the flesh is uppermost, and sometimes the spirit; adding that the former, while it is in the state of a rider, wears huge Rippon spurs, and when it comes to the turn of being bearer, is wonderfully headstrong and hard-mouthed. However it came about, the saint felt his vessel full extended in every part (a very natural effect of strong inspiration), and the place and time falling out so unluckily that he could not have the convenience of evacuating upwards by repetition, prayer, or lecture, he was forced to open an inferior vent. In short, he wrestled with the flesh so long, that he at length subdued it, coming off with honourable wounds, all before. The surgeon had now cured the parts primarily affected, but the disease, driven from its post, flew into his head; and, as a skilful general, valiantly attacked in his trenches, and beaten from the field, by flying marches withdraws to the capital city, breaking down the bridges to prevent pursuit; so the disease, repelled from its first station, fled before the Rod of Hermes to the upper region, there fortifying itself; but finding the foe making attacks at the nose, broke down the bridge, and retired to the head-quarters. Now, the naturalists observe, that there is in human noses an idiosyncracy, by virtue of which, the more the passage is obstructed, the more our speech delights to go through, as the music of a flageolet is made by the stops. By this method, the twang of the nose becomes perfectly to resemble the snuffle of a bag-pipe, and is found to be equally attractive of British ears; whereof the saint had sudden experience by practising his new faculty with wonderful success in the operation of the spirit. For, in a short time, no doctrine passed for sound and orthodox, unless it were delivered through the nose. Straight, every pastor copied after this original, and those who could not otherwise arrive to a perfection, spirited by a noble zeal, made use of the same experiment to acquire it. So that I think it may be truly affirmed, the saints owe their empire, to the snuffling of one animal as Darius did his to the neighing of another, and both stratagems were performed by the same art; for we read how the Persian beast acquired his faculty, by covering a mare the day before.
(pp. 136-7)",2009-09-14 19:50:16 UTC,"""Others rather believe there is a perpetual game at leap-frog between both, and sometimes the flesh is uppermost, and sometimes the spirit; adding that the former, while it is in the state of a rider, wears huge Rippon spurs, and when it comes to the turn of being bearer, is wonderfully headstrong and hard-mouthed.""",2009-07-09 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,Beasts,USE in ENTRY. INTEREST.,Reading,17464,6572
"'Mongst all the Blessings that on Life attend,
'Mongst all the Blessings that the Gods can send,
No Joy, no Bliss, my sullen Heart can find,
Musick alone inflames my drooping Mind;
Nay, she would mount her Wings, and fly away,
Not be confin'd to this dull Lump of Clay,
Did not the Charms of Musick most divine
Unite, and things so wide, so close combine.
I wonder where's the Fountain of this bliss,
If Heav'ns Joy be here on Earth, 'tis this.
Nay, without this the very Gods would be
As much dissatisfied with Life, as we.
What complicated Wonders in thee shine!
The God-head is by thee made more divine.
Could the Gods secret Whispers reach mine Ear,
When I at their Tribunal shou'd appear;
My panting Breath with Musick shou'd keep time,
And with her latest Breath I'd yield up mine;
I fear I should dissolve for very Joy,
For Bliss it self o'er-charg'd can Life destroy.
(pp. 25-26, ll. 1-20)
",2013-07-24 15:20:24 UTC,"""Musick alone inflames my drooping Mind; / Nay, she would mount her Wings, and fly away, / Not be confin'd to this dull Lump of Clay, / Did not the Charms of Musick most divine / Unite, and things so wide, so close combine.""",2013-07-24 15:20:24 UTC,"","",,Animals,[Fixing typo in C-H Lion],"Searching ""mind"" in C-H Lion",21993,7560
"And whereas the mind of man, when he gives the spur and bridle to his thoughts, does never stop, but naturally sallies out into both extremes of high and low, of good and evil, his first flight of fancy commonly transports him to ideas of what is most perfect, finished, and exalted, till, having soared out of his own reach and sight, not well perceiving how near the frontiers of height and depth border upon each other, with the same course and wing he falls down plump into the lowest bottom of things, like one who travels the east into the west, or like a straight line drawn by its own length into a circle. Whether a tincture of malice in our natures makes us fond of furnishing every bright idea with its reverse, or whether reason, reflecting upon the sum of things, can, like the sun, serve only to enlighten one half of the globe, leaving the other half by necessity under shade and darkness, or whether fancy, flying up to the imagination of what is highest and best, becomes over-short, and spent, and weary, and suddenly falls, like a dead bird of paradise, to the ground; or whether, after all these metaphysical conjectures, I have not entirely missed the true reason; the proposition, however, which has stood me in so much circumstance is altogether true, that as the most uncivilised parts of mankind have some way or other climbed up into the conception of a God or Supreme Power, so they have seldom forgot to provide their fears with certain ghastly notions, which, instead of better, have served them pretty tolerably for a devil. And this proceeding seems to be natural enough, for it is with men whose imaginations are lifted up very high after the same rate as with those whose bodies are so, that as they are delighted with the advantage of a nearer contemplation upwards, so they are equally terrified with the dismal prospect of the precipice below. Thus in the choice of a devil it has been the usual method of mankind to single out some being, either in act or in vision, which was in most antipathy to the god they had framed. Thus also the sect of the AEolists possessed themselves with a dread and horror and hatred of two malignant natures, betwixt whom and the deities they adored perpetual enmity was established. The first of these was the chameleon, sworn foe to inspiration, who in scorn devoured large influences of their god, without refunding the smallest blast by eructation. The other was a huge terrible monster called Moulinavent, who with four strong arms waged eternal battle with all their divinities, dexterously turning to avoid their blows and repay them with interest.
(pp. 76-7 in OUP ed.)",2013-09-11 21:20:24 UTC,"""And whereas the mind of man, when he gives the spur and bridle to his thoughts, does never stop, but naturally sallies out into both extremes of high and low, of good and evil, his first flight of fancy commonly transports him to ideas of what is most perfect, finished, and exalted, till, having soared out of his own reach and sight, not well perceiving how near the frontiers of height and depth border upon each other, with the same course and wing he falls down plump into the lowest bottom of things, like one who travels the east into the west, or like a straight line drawn by its own length into a circle.""",2013-09-11 21:19:30 UTC,"","",,Animals,"",Reading,22711,4024
"And whereas the mind of man, when he gives the spur and bridle to his thoughts, does never stop, but naturally sallies out into both extremes of high and low, of good and evil, his first flight of fancy commonly transports him to ideas of what is most perfect, finished, and exalted, till, having soared out of his own reach and sight, not well perceiving how near the frontiers of height and depth border upon each other, with the same course and wing he falls down plump into the lowest bottom of things, like one who travels the east into the west, or like a straight line drawn by its own length into a circle. Whether a tincture of malice in our natures makes us fond of furnishing every bright idea with its reverse, or whether reason, reflecting upon the sum of things, can, like the sun, serve only to enlighten one half of the globe, leaving the other half by necessity under shade and darkness, or whether fancy, flying up to the imagination of what is highest and best, becomes over-short, and spent, and weary, and suddenly falls, like a dead bird of paradise, to the ground; or whether, after all these metaphysical conjectures, I have not entirely missed the true reason; the proposition, however, which has stood me in so much circumstance is altogether true, that as the most uncivilised parts of mankind have some way or other climbed up into the conception of a God or Supreme Power, so they have seldom forgot to provide their fears with certain ghastly notions, which, instead of better, have served them pretty tolerably for a devil. And this proceeding seems to be natural enough, for it is with men whose imaginations are lifted up very high after the same rate as with those whose bodies are so, that as they are delighted with the advantage of a nearer contemplation upwards, so they are equally terrified with the dismal prospect of the precipice below. Thus in the choice of a devil it has been the usual method of mankind to single out some being, either in act or in vision, which was in most antipathy to the god they had framed. Thus also the sect of the AEolists possessed themselves with a dread and horror and hatred of two malignant natures, betwixt whom and the deities they adored perpetual enmity was established. The first of these was the chameleon, sworn foe to inspiration, who in scorn devoured large influences of their god, without refunding the smallest blast by eructation. The other was a huge terrible monster called Moulinavent, who with four strong arms waged eternal battle with all their divinities, dexterously turning to avoid their blows and repay them with interest.
(pp. 76-7 in OUP ed.)",2013-09-11 21:22:01 UTC,"""Whether a tincture of malice in our natures makes us fond of furnishing every bright idea with its reverse, or whether reason, reflecting upon the sum of things, can, like the sun, serve only to enlighten one half of the globe, leaving the other half by necessity under shade and darkness, or whether fancy, flying up to the imagination of what is highest and best, becomes over-short, and spent, and weary, and suddenly falls, like a dead bird of paradise, to the ground; or whether, after all these metaphysical conjectures, I have not entirely missed the true reason.""",2013-09-11 21:22:01 UTC,"","",,Animals,"",Reading,22712,4024
"I shall not descend so minutely as to insist upon the vast number of beaux, fiddlers, poets, and politicians that the world might recover by such a reformation, but what is more material, beside the clear gain redounding to the commonwealth by so large an acquisition of persons to employ, whose talents and acquirements, if I may be so bold to affirm it, are now buried or at least misapplied. It would be a mighty advantage accruing to the public from this inquiry that all these would very much excel and arrive at great perfection in their several kinds, which I think is manifest from what I have already shown, and shall enforce by this one plain instance, that even I myself, the author of these momentous truths, am a person whose imaginations are hard-mouthed and exceedingly disposed to run away with his reason, which I have observed from long experience to be a very light rider, and easily shook off; upon which account my friends will never trust me alone without a solemn promise to vent my speculations in this or the like manner, for the universal benefit of human kind, which perhaps the gentle, courteous, and candid reader, brimful of that modern charity and tenderness usually annexed to his office, will be very hardly persuaded to believe.
(p. 87 in OUP ed.)",2013-09-11 21:37:53 UTC,"""It would be a mighty advantage accruing to the public from this inquiry that all these would very much excel and arrive at great perfection in their several kinds, which I think is manifest from what I have already shown, and shall enforce by this one plain instance, that even I myself, the author of these momentous truths, am a person whose imaginations are hard-mouthed and exceedingly disposed to run away with his reason, which I have observed from long experience to be a very light rider, and easily shook off.""",2013-09-11 21:37:53 UTC,"","",,Animals,"",Reading,22721,4024
"Sure there are Poets which did never dream
Upon Parnassus, nor did tast the stream
Of Helicon, we therefore may suppose
Those made not Poets, but the Poets those.
And as Courts make not Kings, but Kings the Court,
So where the Muses & their train resort,
Parnassus stands; if I can be to thee
A Poet, thou Parnassus art to me.
Nor wonder, if (advantag'd in my flight,
By taking wing from thy auspicious height)
Through untrac't ways, and aery paths I fly,
More boundless in my Fancy than my eie:
My eye, which swift as thought contracts the space
That lies between, and first salutes the place
Crown'd with that sacred pile, so vast, so high,
That whether 'tis a part of Earth, or sky,
Uncertain seems, and may be thought a proud
Aspiring mountain, or descending cloud,
Pauls, the late theme of such a Muse whose flight
Has bravely reach't and soar'd above thy height:
Now shalt thou stand though sword, or time, or fire,
Or zeal more fierce than they, thy fall conspire,
Secure, whilst thee the best of Poets sings,
Preserv'd from ruine by the best of Kings.
(ll. 1-24; cf. pp. 1-2 in 1655 ed.)",2014-07-08 19:24:07 UTC,"""Nor wonder, if (advantag'd in my flight, / By taking wing from thy auspicious height) / Through untrac't ways, and aery paths I fly, / More boundless in my Fancy than my eie.""",2014-07-08 19:18:23 UTC,"",Flights of Fancy,,"","",Reading,24142,7960
"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)",2014-07-28 18:21:12 UTC,"""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,"","",,"","",Reading,24335,7988