O! many a shaft, at random sent, Finds mark the archer little meant! And many a word, at random spoken, May soothe or wound a heart that's broken!

Perhaps the perusal of such works may, without injustice, be compared with the use of opiates, baneful, when habitually and constantly resorted to, but of most blessed power in those moments of pain and of langour, when the whole head is sore, and the whole heart sick. If those who rail indiscriminately at this species of composition, were to consider the quantity of actual pleasure it produces, and the much greater proportion of real sorrow and distress which it alleviates, their philanthropy ought to moderate their critical pride, or religious intolerance.

I cannot tell how the truth may be; I say the tale as it was said to me.

In prosperous times I have sometimes felt my fancy and powers of language flag, but adversity is to me at least a tonic and bracer.

True love's the gift which God has given To man alone beneath the heaven: It is not fantasy's hot fire, Whose wishes soon as granted fly; It liveth not in fierce desire.

The lover's pleasure, like that of the hunter, is in the chase, and the brightest beauty loses half its merit, as the flower its perfume, when the willing hand can reach it too easily. There must be doubt; there must be difficulty and danger.

Within that awful volume lies The mystery of mysteries!