… This Age I grant (and grant with pride) + 

Is varied, rich, eventful: + 

But if you touch its weaker side, + 

Deplorably resentful: + 

Belaud it, and it takes your praise + 

With air of calm conviction: + 

Condemn it, and at once you raise + 

A storm of contradiction. + 

Whereas with these old shades of mine, + 

Their ways and dress delight me; + 

And should I trip by word or line, + 

They cannot well indict me.⁠ ⁠… + 

Austin Dodson, Epilogue to Eighteenth-Century Vignettes + 