"His strength always appears in his agility; his volatility is not the flutter of a light, but the bound of an elastick mind."
— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Author
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Bathurst, J. Buckland, W. Strahan, J. Rivington and Sons, T. Davies
Date
1779, 1781
Metaphor
"His strength always appears in his agility; his volatility is not the flutter of a light, but the bound of an elastick mind."
Metaphor in Context
The Chronicle is a composition unrivalled and alone: such gaiety of fancy, such facility of expression, such varied similitude, such a succession of images, and such a dance of words, it is vain to expect except from Cowley. His strength always appears in his agility; his volatility is not the flutter of a light, but the bound of an elastick mind. His levity never leaves his learning behind it; the moralist, the politician, and the critick, mingle their influence even in this airy frolick of genius. To such a performance Suckling could have brought the gaiety, but not the knowledge; Dryden could have supplied the knowledge, but not the gaiety.
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
At least 3 entries in ESTC (1779, 1781, 1790). [vols. 1 to 5 dated 1779, vols. 5 to 10, 1781)
Samuel Johnson, Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, to the Works of the English Poets, vol. 1 (London: Bathurst et al., 1779). <Link to ESTC><Link to ECCO>
Text from Jack Lynch's online edition, based on G. B. Hill's Lives of the English Poets, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905). <Link>
Samuel Johnson, Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, to the Works of the English Poets, vol. 1 (London: Bathurst et al., 1779). <Link to ESTC><Link to ECCO>
Text from Jack Lynch's online edition, based on G. B. Hill's Lives of the English Poets, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905). <Link>
Date of Entry
04/30/2011
