He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. . . . He was naturally learn'd; he needed not the spectacles of books to read Nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. . . . He is many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating in to clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great, when some occasion is presented to him.

He who would pry behind the scenes oft sees a counterfeit.

The fool of nature stood with stupid eyes And gaping mouth, that testified surprise.

When beauty fires the blood, how love exalts the mind!

Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries, See the Furies arise!

Imagining is in itself the very height and life of poetry, which, by a kind of enthusiasm or extraordinary emotion of the soul, makes it seem to us that we behold those things which the poet paints.

Home is the sacred refuge of our life.