Samuel Laman Blanchard (1804 – 1845)
English poet, essayist and journalist.
So, in our wisdom and fair justice we go on—"Giving to dust that is a little gilt, More laud than gold e'er dusted;" proclaiming the merits of the bad wine, and making it, by every token, as enticing as we can; and blessing our stars that the good will be found out by its flavor "without our stir." As it is inestimable, we seek not to win esteem for it; as it is beyond all praise, we bestow no praises upon it.
Pope abounds in quotable things, chiefly from his habit of making every line rest on its own merits—a circumstance that accounts, in its turn, for the strong resemblance his couplets bear to each other.
It is an odd mode of diminishing one's own weakness to ask a friend to lend us the equal force of his.
Two hats, we grant, may be better than one; yet is one enough at a time. It is so with the head. It should be sole and self-relying. We like to wear ours in single blessedness on our own shoulders, and not let it hanker after a place on other people's.
When the error is universal, it is supposed to end. The adoption of the foundling establishes its consanguinity.