To Margaret

Who hath seduced thee to this foul revolt (Milton Par. Lost. Bk. I)

From the pure well of Beauty undefiled?(Somebody)

So banished from true wisdom to prefer

Such squalid wit to honourable rhyme? (Cowper's Task, Book I)

To write? To scribble? Nonsense and no

more? (Shakespeare)

I will not write upon this argument (do. Troilus & Cressida)

To write is human—not to write divine.(Pope Essay on Man)

(1827)