Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appear'd, And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard: To carry nature lengths unknown before, To give a Milton birth, ask'd ages more.

Thus happiness depends, as nature shows, less on exterior things than most suppose.

A tale should be judicious, clear, succinct; The language plain, and incidents well link'd; Tell not as new what ev'ry body knows; and, new or old, still hasten to a close.

Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, but God never will.

The rich are too indolent, the poor too weak, to bear the insupportable fatigue of thinking.

Meditation here may think down hours to moments. Here the heart may give a useful lesson to the head and learning wiser grow without his books.

Books are not seldom talismans and spells.