Les incipits : MACKENZIE, The Man of Feeling.

There is some rust about every man at the beginning ; though in some nations (among the French, for instance) the ideas of the inhabitants from climate, or what other cause you will, are so vivacious, so eternally on the wing, that they must, even in small societies, have a frequent collision ; the rust therefore will wear off sooner : but in Britain, it often goes with a man to his gave ; nay, he dares not even pen a hic jacet to speak out for him after his death.


Henry MACKENZIE, The Man of Feeling, 1771.