The time shall come, when, free as seas or wind, Unbounded Thames shall flow for all mankind, Whole nations enter with each swelling tide, And seas but join the regions they divide; Earth's distant ends our glory shall behold, And the new world launch forth to seek the old.
A person who is too nice an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.
Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine; Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine! Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos! is restored; Light dies before thy uncreating word: Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall; And universal darkness buries all.
I believe it is no wrong Observation, that Persons of Genius, and those who are most capable of Art, are always fond of Nature, as such are chiefly sensible, that all Art consists in the Imitation and Study of Nature. On the contrary, People of the common Level of Understanding are principally delighted with the Little Niceties and Fantastical Operations of Art, and constantly think that finest which is least Natural.
Chiefs who no more in bloody fights engage, But wise through time, and narrative with age, In summer-days like grasshoppers rejoice - A bloodless race, that send a feeble voice.
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.