Great injury has resulted from the supposed incompatibility of one talent with another, judgment with imagination and taste, good sense with strong feeling, &c. If it be false, as assuredly it is, the opinion has deprived us of a test which every man might apply. [Hence] Locke's opinions of Blackmore, Hume's of Milton and Shakspere.
October 25, 1802
I began to look through Swift's works. First volume, containing "Tale of a Tub," wanting. Second volume—the sermon on the Trinity, rank Socinianism, purus putus Socinianism, while the author rails against the Socinians for monsters.
The first sight of green fields with the numberless nodding gold cups, and the winding river with alders on its banks, affected me, coming out of a city confinement, with the sweetness and power of a sudden strain of music.
Mem. to end my preface with "in short, speaking to the poets of the age, 'Primus vestrûm non sum, neque imus.' I am none of the best, I am none of the meanest of you."—Burton.
"Et pour moi, le bonheur n'a commencé que lorsque je l'ai eu perdu. Je mettrais volontiers sur la porte du Paradis le vers que le Dante a mis sur celle de l'Enfer.