The one enjoys his muse, and the other his mistress, with a pleasure very little abated by the esteem of the world, and only undervalues their taste for not corresponding with his own.
"It is unnecessary to mention any more of my poems; they had all the same fate; and though in reality some of my latter pieces deserved (I may now speak it without the imputation of vanity) a better success, as I had the character of a bad writer, I found it impossible ever to obtain the reputation of a good one.

Had I possessed the merit of Homer I could have hoped for no applause; since it must have been a profound secret; for no one would now read a syllable of my writings.
"The poets of my age were, as I believe you know, not very famous.
However, there was one of some credit at that time, though I have the consolation to know his works are all perished long ago.

The malice, envy, and hatred I bore this man are inconceivable to any but an author, and an unsuccessful one; I never could bear to hear him well spoken of, and writ anonymous satires against him, though I had received obligations from him; indeed I believe it would have been an absolute impossibility for him at any rate to have made me sincerely his friend.
"I have heard an observation which was made by some one of later days, that there are no worse men than bad authors.

A remark of the same kind hath been made on ugly women, and the truth of both stands on one and the same reason, viz., that they are both tainted with that cursed and detestable vice of envy; which, as it is the greatest torment to the mind it inhabits, so is it capable of introducing into it a total corruption, and of inspiring it to the commission of the most horrid crimes imaginable.
"My life was but short; for I soon pined myself to death with the vice I just now mentioned.

Minos told me I was infinitely too bad for Elysium; and as for the other place, the devil had sworn he would never entertain a poet for Orpheus's sake: so I was forced to return again to the place from whence I came.".