But to consider this Subject in its most ridiculous Lights, Advertisements are of great Use to the Vulgar: First of all, as they a...re Instruments of Ambition. A Man that is by no Means big enough for the Gazette, may easily creep into the Advertisements.... A Second Use which this Sort of Writings have been turned to of late Years, has been the Management of Controversy, insomuch that above half the Advertisements one meets with now-a-Days are purely Polemical.... The Third and last Use of these Writings is, to inform the World where they may be furnished with almost every Thing that is necessary for Life. If a Man has Pains in his Head, Cholicks in his Bowels, or Spots in his Clothes, he may here meet with proper Cures and Remedies.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is no Possibility of succeeding in a Satyrical Way of Writing or Speaking, except a Man throws himself quite out of the Ques...tion. It is great Vanity to think any one will attend a Thing because it is your Quarrel. You must make your Satyr the Concern of Society in general, if you would have it regarded.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
[T]here [is] no Rule in the World to be made for writing Letters, but that of being as near what you speak Face to Face as you can...; which is so great a Truth, that I am of Opinion Writing has lost more Mistresses than any one Mistake in the whole Legend of Love. For when you write to a Lady for whom you have a solid and honourable Passion, the great Idea you have of her, joined to a quick Sense of her Absence, fills your Mind with a Sort of Tenderness, that gives your Language too much the Air of Complaint, which is seldom successful.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
[T]here is a Wit for Discourse, and a Wit for Writing. The Easiness and Familiarity of the first, is not to savour in the least of... Study; but the Exactness of the other, is to admit of something like the Freedom of Discourse, especially in Treatises of Humanity, and what regards the Belles Lettres.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When a Man is in a serious Mood, and ponders upon his own Make, with a Retrospect to the Actions of his Life, and the many fatal M...iscarriages in it, which he owes to ungoverned Passions, he is then apt to say to himself, That Experience has guarded him against such Errors for the future: But Nature often recurs in Spite of his best Resolutions, and it is to the very End of our Days a Struggle between our Reason and our Temper, which shall have the Empire over us.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is nothing which I contemplate with greater Pleasure than the Dignity of Humane Nature, which often shows itself in all Cond...itions of Life: For notwithstanding the Degeneracy and Meanness that is crept into it, there are a Thousand Occasions in which it breaks through its Original Corruption, and shows what it once was, and what it will be hereafter. I consider the Soul of Man, as the Ruin of a glorious Pile of Building; where, amidst great Heaps of Rubbish, you meet with noble Fragments of Sculpture, broken Pillars and Obelisks, and a Magnificence in Confusion.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It has often been a solid Grief to me, when I have reflected on this glorious Nation, which is the Scene of publick Happiness and ...Liberty, that there are still Crowds of private Tyrants, against whom there neither is any Law now in Being, nor can there be invented any by the Wit of Man. These cruel Men are ill-natured husbands.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The present Grandeur of the British Nation might make us expect, that we should rise in our Publick Diversions, and Manner of enjo...ying Life, in Proportion to our Advancement in Glory and Power. Instead of that, take and survey this Town, and you'll find, Rakes and Debauchees are your Men of Pleasure; Thoughtless Atheists, and Illiterate Drunkards, call themselves Free Thinkers; and Gamesters, Banterers, Biters, Swearers, and Twenty new-born Insects more, are, in their several Species, the Modern Men of Wit.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What I am now warning the People of is, That the News-Papers of this Island are as pernicious to weak Heads in England as ever Boo...ks of Chivalry to Spain; and therefore shall do all that in me lies, with the utmost Care and Vigilance imaginable, to prevent these growing Evils.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »