* * *

I do not call him a poet that writes for his own diversion, any more than
that gentleman a fiddler who amuses himself with a violin.--_Swift_.

* * * * *

Pleasure of meat, drink, clothes, &c., are forbidden those that know not
how to use them; just as nurses cry pah! when they see a knife in a
child's hand; they will never say any thing to a man.--_Selden_.

* * * * *

There be that can pack the cards, and yet cannot play well: so there are
some that are good in canvasses and factions, that are otherwise weak
men.--_Lord Bacon_.

* * * * *

A poet hurts himself by writing prose; as a race-horse hurts his motions
by condescending to draw in a team.--_Shenstone_.

* * * * *

I cannot imagine why we should be at the expense to furnish wit for
succeeding ages, when the former have made no sort of provision for
ours.--_Swift_.

* * * * *

Reserve is no more essentially connected with understanding, than a church
organ with devotion, or wine with good nature.--_Shenstone_.

* * * * *

Those beings only are fit for solitude, who like nobody, are like nobody,
and are liked by nobody.--_Zimmerman_.

* * * * *

Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders generally discover every
body's face but their own;--which is the chief reason for that kind of
reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with
it.--_Swift_.

* * * * *

Fools are very often united in the strictest intimacies, as the lighter
kinds of woods are the most closely glued together.--_Shenstone_.

* * * * *

Old sciences are unravelled like old stockings, by beginning at the
foot.--_Swift_.

* * * * *

If parliament were to consider the sporting with reputation of as much
importance as sporting on manors, and pass an act for the preservation of
fame, there are many would thank them for the bill.--_Sheridan_.

* * * * *

It is with wits as with razors, which are never so apt to cut those they
are employed on, as when they have lost their edge.--_Swift_.

* * * * *

Exile is no evil: mathematicians tell us that the whole earth is