When I consider life, it is all a cheat. Yet fooled with hope, people favor this deceit.

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.

But wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand, And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land.

Joy rul'd the day, and Love the night.

Better to hunt in fields, for health unbought, Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught, The wise, for cure, on exercise depend; God never made his work for man to mend.

Repentance is but want of power to sin.

Fowls, by winter forced, forsake the floods, and wing their hasty flight to happier lands.