"But as his imagination was strong and rich, rather than delicate and correct, he sometimes gives it too loose reins."
— Blair, Hugh (1718-1800)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London and Edinburgh
Publisher
Printed for W. Strahan; T. Cadell; and W. Creech
Date
1783
Metaphor
"But as his imagination was strong and rich, rather than delicate and correct, he sometimes gives it too loose reins."
Metaphor in Context
Dr. Young also often trespasses in the same way. The merit, however, of this writer, in figurative Language, is great, and deserves to be remarked. No writer, antient or modern, had a stronger imagination than Dr. Young, or one more fertile in figures of every kind. His Metaphors are often new, and often natural and beautiful. But as his imagination was strong and rich, rather than delicate and correct, he sometimes gives it too loose reins. Hence, in his Night Thoughts, there prevails an obscurity, and a hardness in his style. The Metaphors are frequently too bold, and frequently too far pursued; the reader is dazzled rather than enlightened; and kept constantly on the stretch to comprehend, and keep pace with the author. We may observe, for instance, how the following metaphor is spun out:
Thy Thoughts are vagabonds; all outward-bound,
Mid sands, and rocks, and storms, to cruise for pleasure;
If gain'd, dear-bought; and better miss'd than gain'd.
Much pain must expiate what much pain procured.
Fancy and Sense from an infected shore,
Thy cargo bring; and pestilence the prize.
Then, such thy thirst, (insatiable thirst!
By fond indulgence but inflamed the more!)
Fancy still cruises when poor Sense is tired.
(Lecture XV, p. 372)
Thy Thoughts are vagabonds; all outward-bound,
Mid sands, and rocks, and storms, to cruise for pleasure;
If gain'd, dear-bought; and better miss'd than gain'd.
Much pain must expiate what much pain procured.
Fancy and Sense from an infected shore,
Thy cargo bring; and pestilence the prize.
Then, such thy thirst, (insatiable thirst!
By fond indulgence but inflamed the more!)
Fancy still cruises when poor Sense is tired.
(Lecture XV, p. 372)
Categories
Provenance
Gale's Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).
Citation
29 entries in ESTC (1783, 1784, 1787, 1788, 1789, 1790, 1793, 1796, 1798). See also Heads of the Lectures on Rhetorick, and Belles Lettres (1767, 1771, 1777) and abridgments of the lectures as Essays on Rhetoric (1784, 1785, 1787, 1789, 1793, 1797, 1798).
See Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. By Hugh Blair (London: Printed for W. Strahan; T. Cadell; and W. Creech, in Edinburgh, 1783): <Link to ESTC>. See also Dublin edition of same year in ECCO-TCP: <Link to Vol. I><Vol. II><Vol. III>. Revised and corrected for second edition of 1785.
Reading Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, eds. Linda Ferreira-Buckley and S. Michael Halloran (Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2005). Text based on second edition of 1785.
See Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. By Hugh Blair (London: Printed for W. Strahan; T. Cadell; and W. Creech, in Edinburgh, 1783): <Link to ESTC>. See also Dublin edition of same year in ECCO-TCP: <Link to Vol. I><Vol. II><Vol. III>. Revised and corrected for second edition of 1785.
Reading Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, eds. Linda Ferreira-Buckley and S. Michael Halloran (Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2005). Text based on second edition of 1785.
Theme
Meta-metaphorical
Date of Entry
01/26/2004
Date of Review
06/29/2012
