The passage in question is as follows:—­

   “When I consider life, ’t is all a cheat,
   Yet fooled by hope, men favour the deceit;
   Trust on and think, to-morrow will repay;
   To-morrow’s falser than the former day;
   Lies more; and whilst it says we shall be blest
   With some new joy, cuts off what we possessed;
   Strange cozenage! none would live past years again,
   Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain,
   And from the dregs of life think to receive
   What the first sprightly running could not give. 
   I’m tired with waiting for this chymic gold,
   Which fools us young, and beggars us when old.”

I shall now give you my translation:—­

   “De desseins en regrets et d’erreurs en desirs
   Les mortals insenses promenent leur folie. 
   Dans des malheurs presents, dans l’espoir des plaisirs
   Nous ne vivons jamais, nous attendons la vie. 
   Demain, demain, dit-on, va combler tous nos voeux. 
   Demain vient, et nous laisse encore plus malheureux. 
   Quelle est l’erreur, helas! du soin qui nous devore,
   Nul de nous ne voudroit recommencer son cours. 
   De nos premiers momens nous maudissons l’aurore,
   Et de la nuit qui vient nous attendons encore,
   Ce qu’ont en vain promis les plus beaux de nos jours,” &c.

It is in these detached passages that the English have hitherto excelled.  Their dramatic pieces, most of which are barbarous and without decorum, order, or verisimilitude, dart such resplendent flashes through this gleam, as amaze and astonish.  The style is too much inflated, too unnatural, too closely copied from the Hebrew writers, who abound so much with the Asiatic fustian.  But then it must be also confessed that the stilts of the figurative style, on which the English tongue is lifted up, raises the genius at the same time very far aloft, though with an irregular pace.  The first English writer who composed a regular tragedy, and infused a spirit of elegance through every part of it, was the illustrious Mr. Addison.  His “Cato” is a masterpiece, both with regard to the diction and to the beauty and harmony of the numbers.  The character of Cato is, in my opinion, vastly superior to that of Cornelia in the “Pompey” of Corneille, for Cato is great without anything like fustian, and Cornelia, who besides is not a necessary character, tends sometimes to bombast.  Mr. Addison’s Cato appears to me the greatest character that was ever brought upon any stage, but then the rest of them do not correspond to the dignity of it, and this dramatic piece, so excellently well writ, is disfigured by a dull love plot, which spreads a certain languor over the whole, that quite murders it.