Samuel Butler

Where entity and quiddity,
The ghosts of defunct bodies, fly.

Where entity and quiddity,
The ghosts of defunct bodies, fly.

The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.

The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.

Doubtless the pleasure is as great
Of being cheated as to cheat.

Doubtless the pleasure is as great
Of being cheated as to cheat.

He'd undertake to prove, by force
Of argument, a man's no horse.
He'd prove a buzzard is read more

He'd undertake to prove, by force
Of argument, a man's no horse.
He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl,
And that a Lord may be an owl,
A calf an Alderman, a goose a Justice,
And rooks, Committee-men or Trustees.

The Roman senate, when within
The city walls an owl was seen,
Did cause their clergy, with read more

The Roman senate, when within
The city walls an owl was seen,
Did cause their clergy, with lustrations
. . . .
The round-fac'd prodigy t' avert,
From doing town or country hurt.