True wit is nature to advantage dressed;What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.

Music resembles poetry, in eachAre nameless graces which no methods teach,And which a master hand alone can reach.

In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold;Alike fantastic, if too new, or old:Be not the first by whom the new are tried,Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

Whether the darken'd room to muse invite, Or whiten'd wall provoke the skew'r to write; In durance, exile, Bedlam, or the Mint, Like Lee or Budgel I will rhyme and print.

And write about it, Goddess, and about it!

No writing is good that does not tend to better mankind in some way or other.

Why did I write? What sin to me unknown dipped me in ink, my parents , or my own?

Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss.

But those who cannot write, and those who can, All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble, to a man.