The English Writers of Tragedy are possessed with a Notion, that when they represent a virtuous or innocent Person in Distress, they ought not to leave him till they have delivered him out of his Troubles, or made him triumph over his Enemies.

For ever singing as they shine, The hand that made us is divine.

What can be nobler than the idea it gives us of the Supreme Being?

The first race of mankind used to dispute, as our ordinary people do now-a-days, in a kind of wild logic, uncultivated by rule of art.

Our disputants put me in mind of the cuttlefish that, when he is unable to extricate himself, blackens the water about him till he becomes invisible.

Among those evils which befall us, there are many which have been more painful to us in the prospect than by their actual pressure.

In the common run of mankind, for one that is wise and good you find ten of a contrary character.