«Caracteres» (en Remains 1759-obra póstuma)
Original: «A modern politician: ... He believes there is no way of thriving so easy and certain as to grow rich by defrauding the public; for public thieveries are more safe and less prosecuted than private, like robberies committed between sun and sun,... For all the difficulty lies in being trusted, and when he has obtained that, the business does itself; and if he should happen to be questioned and called to an account, a pardon is as cheap as a paymaster's fee, not above fourteenpence in the pound...».
Fuente: Remains, vol. 2 (1759)
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«Caracteres» (en Remains 1759-obra póstuma)
Original: «A small poet: ... He makes nothing of writing plays, because he has not wit enough to understand the difficulty... Where he thinks he may do it safely, he will confidently own other men's writing... For similitudes, he likes the hardest and most obscure best; for as ladies wear black patches to make their complexions seem fairer than they are, so when an illustration is more obscure than the sense that went before it, it must of necessity make it appear clearer than it did, for contraries are best set off with contraries...».
Fuente: Remains, vol. 2 (1759)
«Caracteres» (en Remains 1759-obra póstuma)
Original: «A play writer: ... Nothing encourages him more in his undertaking than his ignorance, for he has not wit enough to understand so much as the difficulty of what he attempts; therefore he runs on boldly like a foolhardy wit, and Fortune, that favours fools and the bold, sometimes takes notice of him for his double capacity, and receives him into her good graces. He has one motive more, and that is the concurrent ignorant judgment of the present age, in which his sottish fopperies pass with applause, like Oliver Cromwell's oratory among fanatics of his own canting inclination. He finds it easier to write in rhyme than prose, for the world being over-charged with romances, he finds his plots, passions, and repartees ready made to his hand, and if he can but turn them into rhyme the thievery is disguised, and they pass for his own wit and invention...».
Fuente: Remains, vol. 2 (1759)