"For it is well known we are not many of us like that Roman who wished for windows to his breast that all might be as conspicuous there as in his house, which, for that reason, he had built as open as was possible."
— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
John Morphew
Date
1710, 1714
Metaphor
"For it is well known we are not many of us like that Roman who wished for windows to his breast that all might be as conspicuous there as in his house, which, for that reason, he had built as open as was possible."
Metaphor in Context
Our present manners, I must own, are not so well calculated for this method of soliloquy as to suffer it to become a nationl practice. It is but a small portion of this regimen which I would willingly borrow and apply to private use, especially in the case of authors. I am sensible how fatal it might prove to many honourable persons, should they acquire such a habit as this or offer to practise such an art within reach of any mortal ear. For it is well known we are not many of us like that Roman who wished for windows to his breast that all might be as conspicuous there as in his house, which, for that reason, he had built as open as was possible. I would therefore advise our probationer upon his first exercise to retire into some thick wood or, rather, take the point of some high hill where, besides the advantage of looking about him for security, he would find the air perhaps more rarefied and suitable to the perspiration required, especially in the case of a poetical genius: The entire troop of authors loves a grove and shuns cities.
(p. 73)
(p. 73)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
A complicated publication history. At least 10 entries in ESTC (1710, 1711, 1714, 1733, 1744, 1751, 1757, 1758, 1773, 1790).
See Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author (London: John Morphew, 1710). <Link to ESTC><Link to Google Books>
See also "Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author" in Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times. In Three Volumes. (London: John Darby, 1711). <Link to ESTC>
Some text drawn from ECCO and Google Books; also from Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury. Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, ed. Lawrence E. Klein (Cambridge: CUP, 2001). Klein's text is based on the British Library's copy of the second edition of 1714. [Texts to be collated.]
See Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author (London: John Morphew, 1710). <Link to ESTC><Link to Google Books>
See also "Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author" in Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times. In Three Volumes. (London: John Darby, 1711). <Link to ESTC>
Some text drawn from ECCO and Google Books; also from Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury. Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, ed. Lawrence E. Klein (Cambridge: CUP, 2001). Klein's text is based on the British Library's copy of the second edition of 1714. [Texts to be collated.]
Date of Entry
11/06/2003
