"As on the land while here the Ocean gains, / In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains; / Thus in the soul while memory prevails, / The solid pow'r of understanding fails; / Where beams of warm imagination play, / The memory's soft figures melt away."
— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for W. Lewis
Date
w. c. 1709, 1711
Metaphor
"As on the land while here the Ocean gains, / In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains; / Thus in the soul while memory prevails, / The solid pow'r of understanding fails; / Where beams of warm imagination play, / The memory's soft figures melt away."
Metaphor in Context
But you who seek to give and merit fame,
And justly bear a Critic's noble name,
Be sure yourself and your own reach to know,
How far your genius, taste, and learning go;
Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet,
And mark that point where sense and dulness meet.
Nature to all things fix'd the limits fit,
And wisely curb'd proud man's pretending wit.
As on the land while here the Ocean gains,
In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains;
Thus in the soul while memory prevails,
The solid pow'r of understanding fails;
Where beams of warm imagination play,
The memory's soft figures melt away.
One science only will one genius fit;
So vast is art, so narrow human wit:
Not only bounded to peculiar arts,
But oft' in those confin'd to single parts.
Like Kings we lose the conquests gain'd before,
By vain ambition still to make them more;
Each might his sev'ral province well command,
Would all but stoop to what they understand.
(I, ll. 52-67)
And justly bear a Critic's noble name,
Be sure yourself and your own reach to know,
How far your genius, taste, and learning go;
Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet,
And mark that point where sense and dulness meet.
Nature to all things fix'd the limits fit,
And wisely curb'd proud man's pretending wit.
As on the land while here the Ocean gains,
In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains;
Thus in the soul while memory prevails,
The solid pow'r of understanding fails;
Where beams of warm imagination play,
The memory's soft figures melt away.
One science only will one genius fit;
So vast is art, so narrow human wit:
Not only bounded to peculiar arts,
But oft' in those confin'd to single parts.
Like Kings we lose the conquests gain'd before,
By vain ambition still to make them more;
Each might his sev'ral province well command,
Would all but stoop to what they understand.
(I, ll. 52-67)
Provenance
Reading. Found again in Joseph Warton's An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope (London: Printed for M. Cooper, 1756), 116. Also in James Beattie's Dissertations Moral and Critical (London: Strahan, 1783), 6. See also Ralph Cohen's "Pope's Meanings and the Strategies of Interrelation," English Literature in the Age of Disguise, ed. Maximillian E. Novak, (Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1977), 111-12.
Citation
Over 30 entries in ESTC. (1711, 1713, 1714, 1716, 1717, 1718, 1719, 1722, 1728, 1736, 1737, 1741, 1744, 1745, 1749, 1751, 1754, 1758, 1765, 1770, 1774, 1777, 1782, 1796).
An Essay on Criticism. (London: Printed for W. Lewis, 1711). <Link to ESTC><Link to Google Books><Link to 2nd edition in ECCO-TCP>
Originally searching through Stanford's HDIS installation of the Chadwyck-Healey database (which indexes a text from the 1736 Works. Some text drawn from ECCO-TCP edition.
An Essay on Criticism. (London: Printed for W. Lewis, 1711). <Link to ESTC><Link to Google Books><Link to 2nd edition in ECCO-TCP>
Originally searching through Stanford's HDIS installation of the Chadwyck-Healey database (which indexes a text from the 1736 Works. Some text drawn from ECCO-TCP edition.
Date of Entry
07/22/2005
Date of Review
10/20/2011
