And for the authentical truth of either person or actions, who (worth the respecting) will expect it in a poem, whose subject is not truth, but things like truth? Poor envious souls they are that cavil at truth's want in these natural fictions; material instruction, elegant and sententious excitation to virtue, and deflection from her contrary, being the soul, limbs, and limits of an authentical tragedy.

As night the life-inclining stars best shows, So lives obscure the starriest souls disclose.

Virtue is not malicious; wrong done her Is righted even when men grant they err.

Tis immortality to die aspiring, As if a man were taken quick to heaven.

I will neither yield to the song of the siren nor the voice of the hyena, the tears of the crocodile nor the howling of the wolf.

Enough 's as good as a feast.

The incompetent quickly throws himself into another impressive enterprise in order to escape his responsibility from previous disaster.