So vast is art, so narrow human wit.

Blest paper-credit! last and best supply! That lends corruption lighter wings to fly!

But those who cannot write, and those who can, All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble, to a man.

Lo! The poor Indian, whose untutored mind sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind.

Is that a birthday? 'tis, alas! too clear; 'Tis but the funeral of the former year.

Death, only death, can break the lasting chain; And here, ev'n then, shall my cold dust remain

Old men, for the most part, are like old chronicles that give you dull but true accounts of times past, and are worth knowing only on that score.