Blest leisure is our curse; like that of Cain, It, makes us wander, wander earth around, To fly that tyrant Thought. As Atlas groan'd The world beneath, we groan beneath an hour.

Joys season'd high, and tasting strong of guilt.

Fame is the shade of immortality, And in itself a shadow. Soon as caught, Contemn'd; it shrinks to nothing in the grasp.

Where Nature's end of language is declin'd, And men talk only to conceal the mind.

What ardently we wish, we soon believe.

Born Originals, how comes it to pass that we die Copies?

Some wits, too, like oracles, deal in ambiguities, but not with equal success; for though ambiguities are the first excellence of an imposter, they are the last of a wit.