"The old project of a window in the bosom, to render the Soul of man visible, is what every honest friend has manifold reason to wish for; yet even that would not do in our case, while you are so far separated from me, and so long."
— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)
Author
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed by J. Wright
Date
1737
Metaphor
"The old project of a window in the bosom, to render the Soul of man visible, is what every honest friend has manifold reason to wish for; yet even that would not do in our case, while you are so far separated from me, and so long."
Metaphor in Context
The old project of a window in the bosom, to render the Soul of man visible, is what every honest friend has manifold reason to wish for; yet even that would not do in our case, while you are so far separated from me, and so long. I begin to fear you'll die in Ireland, and that denunciation will be fulfilled upon you, Hibernus es, & in Hiberniam reverteris. I should be apt to think you in Sancho's case; some Duke has made you Governour of an Island, or wet place, and you are administring laws to the wild Irish. But I must own, when you talk of building and planting, you touch my string; and I am as apt to pardon you as the fellow that thought himself Jupiter would have pardon'd the other madman who call'd himself his brother Neptune. Alas Sir, do you know whom you talk to? one that had been a Poet, was degraded to a Translator, and at last thro' meer dulness is turn'd an Architect. You know Martial's censure, Præconem facito vel Architectum. However I have one way left, to plan, to elevate, and to surprize: (as Bays fays) the next news you may expect to hear, is that I am in debt.
(Mr. Pope to [...], Decemb. 12, 1718, L117, pp. 205-6)
(Mr. Pope to [...], Decemb. 12, 1718, L117, pp. 205-6)
Categories
Provenance
Reading in Google Books
Citation
Text from Letters of Mr. Alexander Pope, and Several of his Friends (London: Printed by J. Wright, 1737). <Link to Google Books>
See also earlier printings of Pope's letters. Pope famously tricked Curll into pirating his correspondence in 1735 under the title Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence for Thirty Years; from 1704 to 1734, before he issued an authorized edition of his own in 1737 as Letters of Mr. Alexander Pope, and Several of his Friends. See also Curll's Miscellanea of 1727 which also includes letters written by Pope to Henry Cromwell. On Pope's stratagem and the 1737 text, see Raymond Stephanson's "Letters of Mr. Alexander Pope and the Curious Case of Modern Scholarship and the Vanishing Text" Eighteenth-Century Life 31:1 (2007): 1-21. <Link to ECL>
See also earlier printings of Pope's letters. Pope famously tricked Curll into pirating his correspondence in 1735 under the title Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence for Thirty Years; from 1704 to 1734, before he issued an authorized edition of his own in 1737 as Letters of Mr. Alexander Pope, and Several of his Friends. See also Curll's Miscellanea of 1727 which also includes letters written by Pope to Henry Cromwell. On Pope's stratagem and the 1737 text, see Raymond Stephanson's "Letters of Mr. Alexander Pope and the Curious Case of Modern Scholarship and the Vanishing Text" Eighteenth-Century Life 31:1 (2007): 1-21. <Link to ECL>
Date of Entry
07/08/2013
