Dear authors! suit your topics to your strength,
And ponder well your subject, and its length;
Nor read more

Dear authors! suit your topics to your strength,
And ponder well your subject, and its length;
Nor lift your lad, before you're quite aware
What weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear.

Write to the mind and heart, and let the ear
Glean after what it can.

Write to the mind and heart, and let the ear
Glean after what it can.

Smelling of the lamp.

Smelling of the lamp.

Oh! rather give me commentators plain,
Who with no deep researches vex the brain;
Who from the read more

Oh! rather give me commentators plain,
Who with no deep researches vex the brain;
Who from the dark and doubtful love to run,
And hold their glimmering tapers to the sun.

The pen is the tongue of the mind.
[Sp., La pluma es lengua del alma.]

The pen is the tongue of the mind.
[Sp., La pluma es lengua del alma.]

Apt Alliteration's artful aid.

Apt Alliteration's artful aid.

Indeed, unless a man can link his written thoughts with the
everlasting wants of men, so that they shall read more

Indeed, unless a man can link his written thoughts with the
everlasting wants of men, so that they shall draw more from them
as wells, there is no more immortality to the thoughts and
feelings of the soul than to the muscles and bones.

But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought produces
read more

But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions think.

So that the jest is clearly to be seen,
Not in the words--but in the gap between;
read more

So that the jest is clearly to be seen,
Not in the words--but in the gap between;
Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,
The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.