“Tis sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty. We have our fore-fathers and great-grandames all before us, as they were in Chaucer's days; their general characters are still remaining in mankind, and even in England, though they are call'd by other names than those of Monks and Friars, and Canons, and Lady Abbesses, and Nuns: for mankind is ever the same, and nothing lost out of nature, though everything is altered.”

— John Dryden, book Fables, Ancient and Modern

Preface to the Fables.
Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700)

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John Dryden196

English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century 1631–1700

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