Biography Is One Of The New Terrors

It Is Surprising To See What Superficial, Inconsequential Reasonings Satisfy The Most Part Of Mankind. A Piece Of Wit, A Jest, A Simile, Or A Quotation Of An Author, Passes For A Mighty Argument.... This Weakness And Effeminacy Of Mankind In Being Persuaded Where They Are Delighted, Have Made Them The Sport Of Orators, Poets, And Men Of Wit.

When I Became Thoroughly Acquainted With The Greek And Roman Authors, I Thought It Incumbent Upon Me To Do Something Towards The Honor Of The Place Of My Nativity, And To Vindicate The Rhetoric Of This Ancient Forum Of Our Metropolis From The Aspersions Of The Illiterate By Composing A Treatise Of The Alercation Of The Ancients; Wherein I Have Demonstrated That The Purity, Sincerity, And Simplicity Of Their Diction Is Nowhere So Well Preserved As Amongst My Neighbourhood.

Law Is A Bottomless-pit, It Is A Cormorant, A Harpy, That Devours Every Thing.

The Dumpling Is Indeed Of More Ancient Institution, And Of Foreign Origin; But Alas, What Were Those Dumplings? Nothing But A Few Lentils Sodden Together, Moisten'd And Cemented With A Little Seeth'd Fat.

Hocus Was An Old Cunning Attorney. The Words Of Consecration, "hoc Est Corpus," Were Travestied Into A Nickname For Jugglery, As "hocus-pocus." - John Richard Green, A Short History Of The English People, 1874. See Charles Macklin.