On Dullness
–Alexander Pope
Thus Dulness, the safe Opiate of the Mind,
The last kind Refuge weary Wit can find,
Fit for all Stations, and in each content
Is satisfy’d, secure, and innocent:
No Pains it takes, and no Offence it gives,
Un-fear’d, un-hated, un-disturb’d it lives.
–And if each writing Author’s best pretence,
Be but to teach the Ignorant more Sense;
Then Dulness was the Cause they wrote before;
As ’tis at last the Cause they write no more;
So Wit, which most scorn it does pretend,
With Dulness first began, in Dulness last must end.