"I shall, perhaps, deserve censure for concealing a name which belongs to so much excellence, but I fear to offend the delicacy of your nature; true merit is ever modest, and your mind, like the sensitive plant at the touch, would shrink from the voice of public celebrity."
— Anonymous
Author
Place of Publication
Dublin
Publisher
Printed by B. Dornin
Date
1790
Metaphor
"I shall, perhaps, deserve censure for concealing a name which belongs to so much excellence, but I fear to offend the delicacy of your nature; true merit is ever modest, and your mind, like the sensitive plant at the touch, would shrink from the voice of public celebrity."
Metaphor in Context
Madam,
I shall, perhaps, deserve censure for concealing a name which belongs to so much excellence, but I fear to offend the delicacy of your nature; true merit is ever modest, and your mind, like the sensitive plant at the touch, would shrink from the voice of public celebrity: permit me, however, to lay the Mirror at your feet; look into it, and if you there discover a shade of your own beauties, the surface will be to others sufficiently alluring--but not--my pend can never convey lines of such harmony and points of such perfection--It candour is a virtue, let me say that you temper its honest frankness with the feelings of delicacy; if sensibility is amiable, let me proclaim that the tear of benignity never fell more frequent on the cheek of loveliness; if generosity of sentiment deserves respect, let me assert your superiority over those despicable females who grow stale in sordid adoration of their golden phantom. [...]
(Dedication, pp. iii-iv)
I shall, perhaps, deserve censure for concealing a name which belongs to so much excellence, but I fear to offend the delicacy of your nature; true merit is ever modest, and your mind, like the sensitive plant at the touch, would shrink from the voice of public celebrity: permit me, however, to lay the Mirror at your feet; look into it, and if you there discover a shade of your own beauties, the surface will be to others sufficiently alluring--but not--my pend can never convey lines of such harmony and points of such perfection--It candour is a virtue, let me say that you temper its honest frankness with the feelings of delicacy; if sensibility is amiable, let me proclaim that the tear of benignity never fell more frequent on the cheek of loveliness; if generosity of sentiment deserves respect, let me assert your superiority over those despicable females who grow stale in sordid adoration of their golden phantom. [...]
(Dedication, pp. iii-iv)
Categories
Provenance
Reading at the Folger
Citation
Anonymous, The Mirror; a Panegyrical, Satirical, and Thespian Epistle in Rhyme, from the Theatre in Crow-Street, to the Theatre in Smock-Alley. (Dublin: Printed by B. Dornin, 1790).
Date of Entry
05/16/2013
