The business of life summons us away from useless grief, and calls us to the exercise of those virtues of which we are lamenting our deprivation.

The art of the writer, like that of the player, is attained by slow degrees. The power of distinguishing and discriminating comick characters, or of filling tragedy with poetical images, must be the gift of nature, which no instruction nor labour can supply; but the art of dramatick disposition, the contexture of the scenes, the involution of the plot, the expedients of suspension, and the strategems of surprise, are to be learned by practice.

Golf is a game in which you claim the privileges of age, and retain the playthings of childhood.

It is indeed certain, that whoever attempts any common topick, will find unexpected coincidences of his thoughts with those of other writers; nor can the nicest judgment always distinguish accidental similitude from artful imitation.

Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy, affectation part of the chosen trappings of folly; the one completes a villain, the other only finishes a fop.

Thought is always troublesome to him who lives without his own approbation.

An age that melts in unperceiv'd decay, And glides in modest innocence away.