"Bold was the man, and fenc'd in ev'ry part /With oak, and ten-fold brass about the heart, / To build a play who tortur'd first his brain, / And then dar'd launch it on this stormy main."
— Murphy, Arthur (1727-1805)
Author
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for P. Vaillant
Date
1764
Metaphor
"Bold was the man, and fenc'd in ev'ry part /With oak, and ten-fold brass about the heart, / To build a play who tortur'd first his brain, / And then dar'd launch it on this stormy main."
Metaphor in Context
Bold was the man, and fenc'd in ev'ry part
With oak, and ten-fold brass about the heart,
To build a play who tortur'd first his brain,
And then dar'd launch it on this stormy main.
What tho', at first, he spreads his little sails
To Heav'n's indulgent and propitious gales,
As the land gradual lessens to his eye
He finds a troubled sea, and low'ring sky:
Envy, detraction, calumny, and spite,
Raise a worse storm than when the winds unite.
Around his bark, in many a dang'rous shoal,
Those monsters of the deep, the critics, prowl.
"She's a weak vessel, for these seas unfit,
"And has on board her not a spice of wit:
"She's French-built too; of foreign make," they cry;
Like geese still cackling that the Gauls are nigh.
If thrown on rocks by the hoarse dashing wave,
Th' unhappy crew no hand is stretch'd to save;
But round the wreck, like Moors, with furious joy,
The witlings crowd--to murder and destroy.
These are known dangers; and, still full as certain,
The bard meets other ills behind the curtain.
Little you think, ere yet you fix his fate,
What previous mischiefs there in ambush wait;
What plagues arise from all the mimic throng:
"My part's too short;--and, Sir, my part's too long."
This calls for incident; that repartee.
"Down the back-stairs pen an escape for me.
"Give me a ladder, Mr. Bayes, of rope;
"I love to wear the breeches, and elope.
"Something for me the groundlings ears to split.
"Write a dark closet, or a fainting-fit.
"Fix Woodward in some whimsical disgrace:
"Or be facetious with Ned Shuter's face."
This is our way; and yet our bard to night
Removes each obstacle, and springs to light.
Some scenes, we hope, he brings to nature true;
Some gleams of humour, and a moral too;
But no strange monsters offers to your view:
No forms, grotesque and wild, are here at strife:
He boasts an etching from the real life;
Exerts his efforts, in a polish'd age,
To drive the Smithfield muses from the stage;
By easy dialogue would win your praise,
And on fair decency graft all his bayes.
With oak, and ten-fold brass about the heart,
To build a play who tortur'd first his brain,
And then dar'd launch it on this stormy main.
What tho', at first, he spreads his little sails
To Heav'n's indulgent and propitious gales,
As the land gradual lessens to his eye
He finds a troubled sea, and low'ring sky:
Envy, detraction, calumny, and spite,
Raise a worse storm than when the winds unite.
Around his bark, in many a dang'rous shoal,
Those monsters of the deep, the critics, prowl.
"She's a weak vessel, for these seas unfit,
"And has on board her not a spice of wit:
"She's French-built too; of foreign make," they cry;
Like geese still cackling that the Gauls are nigh.
If thrown on rocks by the hoarse dashing wave,
Th' unhappy crew no hand is stretch'd to save;
But round the wreck, like Moors, with furious joy,
The witlings crowd--to murder and destroy.
These are known dangers; and, still full as certain,
The bard meets other ills behind the curtain.
Little you think, ere yet you fix his fate,
What previous mischiefs there in ambush wait;
What plagues arise from all the mimic throng:
"My part's too short;--and, Sir, my part's too long."
This calls for incident; that repartee.
"Down the back-stairs pen an escape for me.
"Give me a ladder, Mr. Bayes, of rope;
"I love to wear the breeches, and elope.
"Something for me the groundlings ears to split.
"Write a dark closet, or a fainting-fit.
"Fix Woodward in some whimsical disgrace:
"Or be facetious with Ned Shuter's face."
This is our way; and yet our bard to night
Removes each obstacle, and springs to light.
Some scenes, we hope, he brings to nature true;
Some gleams of humour, and a moral too;
But no strange monsters offers to your view:
No forms, grotesque and wild, are here at strife:
He boasts an etching from the real life;
Exerts his efforts, in a polish'd age,
To drive the Smithfield muses from the stage;
By easy dialogue would win your praise,
And on fair decency graft all his bayes.
Categories
Provenance
Searching "heart" and "brass" in HDIS (Drama)
Citation
2 entries in ESTC (1764).
No One's Enemy but His Own. A Comedy in Three Acts, As It Is Performed at the Theatre-Royal in Covent-Garden. (London: Printed for P. Vaillant, facing Southampton-Street, in the Strand, 1764). <Link to ESTC>
No One's Enemy but His Own. A Comedy in Three Acts, As It Is Performed at the Theatre-Royal in Covent-Garden. (London: Printed for P. Vaillant, facing Southampton-Street, in the Strand, 1764). <Link to ESTC>
Theme
Horace, Book I, Ode iii
Date of Entry
06/03/2005
