"I cannot allow any fragment whatever that floats in my memory concerning the great subject of this work to be lost."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)


Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed by Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly
Date
1791
Metaphor
"I cannot allow any fragment whatever that floats in my memory concerning the great subject of this work to be lost."
Metaphor in Context
I cannot allow any fragment whatever that floats in my memory concerning the great subject of this work to be lost. Though a small particular may appear trifling to some, it will be relished by others; while every little spark adds something to the general blaze: and to please the true, candid, warm admirers of Johnson, and in any degree increase the splendour of his reputation, I bid defiance to the shafts of ridicule, or even of malignity. Showers of them have been discharged at my "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides;" yet it still sails unhurt along the stream of time, and, as an attendant upon Johnson, "Pursues the triumph, and partakes the gale."
(II, 167)
Provenance
Reading in ECCO-TCP
Citation
5 entries in ESTC (1791, 1792, 1793, 1799).

See The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Comprehending an Account of His Studies and Numerous Works, in Chronological Order; a Series of His Epistolary Correspondence and Conversations With Many Eminent Persons; and Various Original Pieces of His Composition, Never Before Published. The Whole Exhibiting a View of Literature and Literary Men in Great-Britain, for Near Half a Century, During Which He Flourished. In Two Volumes. By James Boswell, Esq. 2 vols. (London: Printed by Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly, in the Poultry, 1791). <Link to ESTC><Vol. I in ECCO-TCP><Vol. II>

My main reading text is James Boswell, The Life of Johnson, ed. Claude Rawson, (New York: Knopf, 1992). Also reading in David Womersley's Penguin edition, 2008.

First edition in Google Books, <Vol. I><Vol. II>. See also Jack Lynch's online e-text, prepared from the 1904 Oxford edition <Link>.
Date of Entry
04/26/2018

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.