Sickness is a sort of early old age; it teaches us a diffidence in our earthly state.

The lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife gives all the strength and color of our life.

What's fame? a fancy'd life in other's breath. A thing beyond us, even before our death.

Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreet To run amuck, and tilt at all I meet.

The cabinets of the sick and the closets of the dead have been ransacked to publish private letters and divulge to all mankind the most secret sentiments of friendship.

Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise; My footstool earth, my canopy the skies.

Fly, dotard, fly! With thy wise dreams and fables of the sky.