200. Consider it as the unalterable law of Nature that all your power upon others depends on your own emotions. Shakspeare wept, trembled, laughed first at what now sways the public feature; and where he did not, he is stale, outrageous or disgusting.
201. None but indelible materials can support the epic. Whatever is local, or the volatile creature of the time, beauties of fashion and sentiments of sects, tears shed over roses, epigrammatic sparkling, passions taught to rave, and graces trained to move, the antiquary's mouldering stores, the bubbles of allegorists—are all with equal contempt passed over or crushed by him who claims the lasting empire of the human heart.
202. The invention of machines to supersede manual labour will at length destroy population and commerce;[41] and the methods contrived to shorten the apprenticeship of artists annihilate art.
203. Expect no religion in times when it is easier to meet with a saint than a man; and no art in those that multiply their artists beyond their labourers.
204. Expect nothing but trifles in times when those who ought to encourage the arts are content to debase them by their own performances.