Chaos of thought and passion, all confused; Still by himself abused or disabused; Created half to rise, and half to fall; Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled,- The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.
Oh! if to dance all night, and dress all day,
Charm'd the small-pox, or chas'd old age away;
. . . .
To patch, nay ogle, might become a saint,
Nor could it sure be such a sin to paint.
With sharpen'd sight pale Antiquaries pore, Th' inscription value, but the rust adore. This the blue varnish, that the green endears; The sacred rust of twice ten hundred years.
It often happens that those are the best people whose characters have been most injured by slanderers: as we usually find that to be the sweetest fruit which the birds have been picking at.
Is there a parson much bemused in beer, a maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer, a clerk foredoom'd his father's soul to cross, who pens a stanza when he should engross?