Date: 1767

"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."

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"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, ...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"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."

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"It will be very difficult therefore for their successors to select objects which the eye of Fancy hath never explored, and none but a Genius uncommonly original can hope to accomplish it."

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"But however properly arranged those materials may be, and however thoroughly digested this intellectual food, an original Genius will sometimes find an inconveniency resulting from it; for as no man can attend to and comprehend many different things at once, his mental faculties will in some cas...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"Nature supplies the materials of his compositions; his senses are the under-workmen, while Imagination, like a masterly Architect, superintends and directs the whole. Or, to speak more properly, Imagination both supplies the materials, and executes the work, since it calls into being 'things tha...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"It may be easily conceived therefore, that an original Poetic Genius, possessing such innate treasure (if we may be allowed an unphilosophical expression) has no use for that which is derived from books, since he may be encumbered, but cannot be inriched by it; for though the chief merit of ordi...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"One obvious effect of it is, that it confines the attention to artificial rules, and ties the mind down to the observance of them, perhaps at the very time that the imagination is upon the stretch, and grasping at some idea astonishingly great, which however it is obliged, though with the utmost...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"Poetic Genius in particular cannot flourish either in uninterrupted SUNSHINE, or in continual SHADE. It languishes under the blazing ardor of a summer noon, as its buds are blasted by the damp fogs and chilling breath of a winter sky."

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"It is, that though the progress of Literature, Criticism and Civilization, have contributed to unfold the powers and extend the empire of Reason; have taught men to think more justly, as well as to express their sentiments which more precision."

— Duff, William (1732-1815)