W.D. Clarke’s Reviews > Selections from The Spectator and The Tatler > Status Update

Lucretius himself tells us, That the Surfaces of all Bodies are perpetually flying off from their respective Bodies, one after another; & that these Surfaces or thin Cases that included each other whilst they were joined in the Body like the Coats of an Onion, are sometimes seen entire when they are separated from it; by which Means we often behold the Shapes and Shadows of Persons who are either dead or absent.

A liberal Education is the only one which a polite Nation makes unprofitable.

That calm and elegant Satisfaction which the Vulgar call Melancholy, is the true and proper Delight of Men of Knowledge and Virtue.

...he came to demand Satisfaction the next Morning, and like a true Tar of Honour called him a Son of a Whore, Lyar, Dog, and other rough Appellatives used by Persons conversant with Winds and Waves

(i.e. the duelist swore like a sailor!)

I am just [returned from] the most celebrated, tho' most nauseous, Company in Town: the two Leaders of the Society were a Critick and a Wit. These two Gentlemen are great Opponents upon all Occasions, not discerning that they are the nearest each other in Temper & Talents of any two Classes of Men in the World; for to profess Judgement, and to profess Wit, both arise from the same Failure, which is...[cont'd]

After the Play, we naturally stroll to this Coffee-house, in Hopes of meeting some new Poem, or other Entertainment, among the Men of Wit and Pleasure, where there is a Dearth at present. But it is wonderful there should be so few Writers, when the Art is become merely Mechanick, and Men may make themselves Great that way, by as certain and infallible rules, as you may be a Joiner or a Mason.

Swift on Steele:
If I have ill interpreted him, it is his own fault, for studying cadence instead of propriety, and filling up niches with words before he has adjusted his conceptions to them.

Steele shoulda adjusted Swift's propriety for him with a few good kicks to his niches...