Date: 1718 [first published 1684-1694]

"And not our Houses alone, when (as SOPHOCLES has it) they stand long untenanted, run the faster to ruine, but Mens natural parts lying unemployed for lack of Acquaintance with the World, contract a kind of filth or rust and craziness thereby."

— Plutarch (c. 46-120)

Date: 1817

"But he, the bard of every age and clime, / Of genius fruitful, ardent and sublime, / Who, from the glowing mint of fancy, pours / No spurious metal, fused from common ores, / But gold, to matchless purity refined, / And stamp'd with all the godhead in his mind."

— Gifford, William (1756-1826)