Vice is a fact of life, wrote Pope, and God can even bring good out of it; but vice is never a virtue and in tackling vice together we make our society stronger.

Shylock is savouring revenge on Antonio for years of disgusting mistreatment, but the judge warns him to temper his demands.

Robert Browning, aboard ship in sight of Gibraltar, reflects on the momentous events in British history that have happened nearby.

Poet Percy Bysshe Shelley says that the pinnacle of political achievement is the government not of others, but of ourselves.