JANUARY 27
If you imitate any writer, let it be South, Atterbury, or Swift, in whom all the properties of a good writer meet. I was myself once much fonder of Prior than Pope; as I did not then know that stiffness was a fault. But what in all Prior can equal, for beauty of style, some of the first lines that Pope ever published? … Here is style! How clear, how pure, proper, strong, and yet how amazingly easy! This crowns all; no stiffness, no hard words; no apparent art, no affectation; all is natural, and therefore consummately beautiful. Go thou and write likewise.
to the Reverend Samuel Furly, 1764
Redeem the time, catch the golden moments as they fly.
Letter, 26th September, 1784
