All your tastes are inconsistent:
Your character undergoes no change;
You have no control of your inclinations.
You take to burning fires
Over trifles which are most slight.
The attraction of the novel,
Inflames you to crazed delight:
More than enough to seduce you
Is your own childish portrait.
Who amuses you controls you:
Who made you laugh? They did everything!
And you love only by surprise.
You only have one jargon,
The frivolous, the inconvenient.
If reason was in fashion
You would all reason too.
1776. Translation by Christopher Laws.
