It is surely one of the strangest of our propensities to mark out those we love best for the worst usage; yet we do, all of us. We can take any freedom with a friend; we stand on no ceremony with a friend.

For the author there is nothing but his pen, till that and life are worn to the stump: and then, with good fortune, perhaps on his death-bed he receives a pension and equals, it may be, for a few months, the income of a retired butler!

So, in our wisdom and fair justice we go on - "Giving to dust that is a little gilt, More laud than gold e'er dusted;" proclaiming the merits of the bad wine, and making it, by every token, as enticing as we can; and blessing our stars that the good will be found out by its flavor "without our stir." As it is inestimable, we seek not to win esteem for it; as it is beyond all praise, we bestow no praises upon it.

Everybody's word is worth Nobody's taking.

Pleasures lie thickest where no pleasures seem: There's not a leaf that falls upon the ground But holds some joy of silence or of sound, Some spirits begotten of a summer dream.

When the error is universal, it is supposed to end. The adoption of the foundling establishes its consanguinity.

As success converts treason into legitimacy, so belief converts fiction into fact, and "nothing is but what is not.