One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,
That all with one consent praise new-born gauds,
Though they are made and moulded of things past;
And give to dust that is a little gilt
More laud than gilt o’er dusted.
The present eye praises the present object.’
Troilus and Cressida.
I cannot very well conceive how it is that some writers (even of taste and genius) spend whole years in mere corrections for the press, as it were—in polishing a line or adjusting a comma. They take long to consider, exactly as there is nothing worth the trouble of a moment’s thought; and the more they deliberate, the farther they are from deciding: for their fastidiousness increases with the indulgence of it, nor is there any real ground for preference. They are in the situation of Ned Softly, in the Tatler, who was a whole morning debating whether a line of a poetical epistle should run—
‘You sing your song with so much art;’
or,