A poem, of whatever length, should start vividly, so as to wind up…

... Mr. Nussey, the king's apothecary, ... whom I knew very intimately later in life, told me that the king confided to him all his secrets, and the knowledge, if written down, would set all England in a blaze. He was with the royal …

In those days, and long after, an English clergyman dressed like a gentleman; he now wears a black livery, and he looks like a bishop's footman, in mourning, with his master, for some dead archbishop.

There is something very dry in family history, because no one cares for other people's relations.

I remember well the time when no gentleman was supposed to smoke; the habit was fit only for the vulgarian.

Nothing that has been and has died out, will be revived. The skeleton, an osseous Apollo, will remain, and that is all.

Dr. Thomas Young, the illustrious inventor of the Undulatory Theory of Light, was then a physician at St. George's. I used to go round the wards with him. He was thought to be very undecided in his opinions of a case; the fact is, medicine …