Imagination in a poet is a faculty so wild and lawless that, like a high ranging spaniel, it must have clogs tied to it, lest it outrun the judgment. The great easiness of blank verse renders the poet too luxuriant. He is tempted to say many things which might better be omitted, or, at least shut up in fewer words.

Arts and sciences in one and the same century have arrived at great perfection; and no wonder, since every age has a kind of universal genius, which inclines those that live in it to some particular studies; the work then, being pushed on by many hands, must go forward.

All objects lose by too familiar a view.

All habits gather by unseen degrees.

I maintain, against the enemies of the stage, that patterns of piety, decently represented, may second the precepts.

Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.

Here lies my wife: here let her lie! Now she's at rest, and so am I.