...combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike . . . The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence...and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtilty surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought, and though he sometimes...

..."metaphysical" style: The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art arc ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions;...and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased. [Johnson, 1783/1964:2-3] Not very much was obscure to Dr. Johnson, but his remark certainly suggests...

...combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike. Of wit, thus defined, they have more than enough....and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased. (Johnson, 1968, pp. 403-4) The position of'wit' in Metaphysical thought is by Johnson's time well understood;...

...he missed them, wonders more frequently by what perverseness of industry they were ever found. . . . The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence...and though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased. . . . Their wish was only to say what they hoped had been never said before. . . . What they wanted...

...Of wit, thus defined, they have more than enough. The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by tiolence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations,...instructs, and their subtlety surprises; but the reader thinks his improvement dearly bongbt. and, though be sometimes admires, is seldom pleased' (ibid: 678)....

...in things apparendy unlike' continues thus: 'Of wit, thus defined, they [the English Metaphysicals ] have more than enough. The most heterogeneous ideas...and allusions ; their learning instructs, and their subdety surprises ; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought, and, though he sometimes...

...neither are they just.' In particular he objected to the frequency of a 'conceit', which he defined. 'The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence...and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtilty surprises; but the reader, . . . though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased' - because...

...language but unable to feel the connection with the actual drama of the senses and of the soul. Hence, "their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises;...and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased" (para. 56). For Eliot, and many twentieth-century readers, this analytic bent of mind marked "a direct...

...the Foulis brothers, he also expressed comparable displeasure at the Metaphysicals' inclusiveness: "nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons,...bought, and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased."8 Morgan, on the other hand, revels in admiration, in the wonderment triggered by hitherto...

...the metaphysical poets, on whom he was severe. The sentence from which Eliot quotes reads in full: "The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence...and though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased" (Samuel Johnson, Lives of the Poets, ed. George Birkbeck Hill [Oxford: Clarendon, 1905], 20). The metaphysical...