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"The mines of Fancy not having been opened before his time, are left to be digged by him; and the treasures they contain become his own, by a right derived from the first discovery. The whole system of nature, and the whole region of fiction, yet unexplored by others, is subjected to his survey, from which he culls those rich spoils, which adorn his compositions, and render them original."

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Author

An Essay on Original Genius

Place of Publication

London

Publisher

Printed for Edward and Charles Dilly

Date

1767

Metaphor

"The mines of Fancy not having been opened before his time, are left to be digged by him; and the treasures they contain become his own, by a right derived from the first discovery. The whole system of nature, and the whole region of fiction, yet unexplored by others, is subjected to his survey, from which he culls those rich spoils, which adorn his compositions, and render them original."

Metaphor in Context

The first reason we shall assign of ORIGINAL Poetic Genius being most remarkably displayed in an early and uncultivated period of society, arises from the antiquity of the period itself, and from the appearance of novelty in the objects which Genius contemplates. A Poet of real Genius, who lives in a distant uncultivated age, possesses great and peculiar advantages for original composition, by the mere antiquity of the period in which he lives. He is perhaps the first Poet who hath arisen in this infant state of society; by which means he enjoys the undivided empire of Imagination without a rival. The mines of Fancy not having been opened before his time, are left to be digged by him; and the treasures they contain become his own, by a right derived from the first discovery. The whole system of nature, and the whole region of fiction, yet unexplored by others, is subjected to his survey, from which he culls those rich spoils, which adorn his compositions, and render them original. It may be said indeed, in answer to this, and it is true, That the stores of nature are inexhaustible by human imagination, and that her face is ever various and ever new; but it may be replied, That some of her stores are more readily found than others, being less hid from the eye of Fancy, and some of her features more easily hit, because more strongly marked. The first good Poet therefore, possessing those unrifled treasures, and contemplating these unfullied features, could not fail to present us with a draught so striking, as to deserve the name of a complete Original. We may farther observe, that the objects with which he is surrounded, have an appearance of novelty, which, in a more cultivated period, they in a great measure lose; but which, in that we are speaking of, excites an attention, curiosity and surprise, highly favourable to the exertion of Genius, and somewhat resembling that which Milton attributes to our first ancestor:
(pp. 265-7)