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 "How fading and insipid do all objects accost us, that are not conveyed in the vehicle of delusion! How shrunk is every thing as it appears in the glass of nature! so that if it were not for the assistance of artificial mediums, false lights, refracted angles, varnish, and tinsel, there would be a mighty level in the felicity, and enjoyments of mortal men."—''Tale of a Tub, Sect. IX''.

So Lord Rochester, in those well-known lines: