On translation

Even the Grammarians, tho' their whole bufinefs and ufe be only to render the words of an Author intelligible, are ftrangely touch'd with the pride of doing fomething more than they ought.

- Alexander Pope, in his preface to Homer's Iliad

Big up the British

Satire is what we, the British, have always done better than anybody. From Chaucer, Swift and Alexander Pope to Chris Morris (The Day Today, Brass Eye, Four Lions), savage and comic lampoons of the age’s ignorance, delusions and cruelties have been as much a part of what this nation is as poetry, cathedrals and binge drinking.

- Bryan Appleyard, 'On Satire'