"For from most Bodies, Dick, You know,/ Some little Bits ask Leave to flow; / And, as thro' these Canals They roll, / Bring up a Sample of the Whole. / Like Footmen running before Coaches, / To tell the Inn, what Lord approaches."
— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Jacob Tonson and John Barber
Date
1718
Metaphor
"For from most Bodies, Dick, You know,/ Some little Bits ask Leave to flow; / And, as thro' these Canals They roll, / Bring up a Sample of the Whole. / Like Footmen running before Coaches, / To tell the Inn, what Lord approaches."
Metaphor in Context
Wise Nature likewise, They suppose,
Has drawn two Conduits down our Nose:
Cou'd Alma else with Judgment tell,
When Cabbage stinks, or Roses smell?
Or who wou'd ask for her Opinion
Between an Oyster, and an Onion?
For from most Bodies, Dick, You know,
Some little Bits ask Leave to flow;
And, as thro' these Canals They roll,
Bring up a Sample of the Whole.
Like Footmen running before Coaches,
To tell the Inn, what Lord approaches.
(p. 471, ll. 48-59)
Has drawn two Conduits down our Nose:
Cou'd Alma else with Judgment tell,
When Cabbage stinks, or Roses smell?
Or who wou'd ask for her Opinion
Between an Oyster, and an Onion?
For from most Bodies, Dick, You know,
Some little Bits ask Leave to flow;
And, as thro' these Canals They roll,
Bring up a Sample of the Whole.
Like Footmen running before Coaches,
To tell the Inn, what Lord approaches.
(p. 471, ll. 48-59)
Provenance
HDIS
Citation
Searching in ECCO and ESTC (1718, 1720, 1721, 1725, 1728, 1733, 1734, 1741, 1751, 1754, 1755, 1759, 1768, 1766, 1767, 1769, 1771, 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779, 1784, 1790, 1798). See also Prior's Poetical Works (1777, 1779, 1784, 1798). Found in A Collection of English Poets, vol. 10 (1776), The British Poets, vol. 18 (1778), and The Works of the English Poets (1779, 1790). I haven't yet been able to confirm that Alma is in 2 vol. Poems of 1755, 1766, 1767 (texts not available in ECCO).
See Prior's Alma: Or, The Progress of the Mind. In Three Cantos published in Poems on Several Occasions (London: Printed for J. Tonson and J. Barber, 1718). <Link to ECCO>
Searching text from Poems on Several Occasions, ed. A. R. Waller (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1905). Reading The Literary Works of Matthew Prior, ed. H. Bunker Wright and Monroe K. Spears. 2 vols. 2nd Edition (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1971).
See Prior's Alma: Or, The Progress of the Mind. In Three Cantos published in Poems on Several Occasions (London: Printed for J. Tonson and J. Barber, 1718). <Link to ECCO>
Searching text from Poems on Several Occasions, ed. A. R. Waller (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1905). Reading The Literary Works of Matthew Prior, ed. H. Bunker Wright and Monroe K. Spears. 2 vols. 2nd Edition (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1971).
Date of Entry
02/27/2004
Date of Review
01/23/2009
