"When a house is tottering to its fall, The strain lies heaviest on the weakest part, One tiny crack throughout the structure spreads, And its own weight soon brings it toppling down."

Source: John Dryden, Ovid, Giovanni Boccaccio, Homer, Geoffrey Chaucer (1771). “Dedication to His Grace the Duke of Ormond. The preface. Poem to Her Grace the Dutchess of Ormond. Palamon and Arcite: or, The Knight's tale, from Chaucer (bk. I-III) To my honoured kinsman John Dryden of Chesterton. Meleager and Atalanta, out of the eighth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Sigismonda and Guiscardo, from Boccace. Baucis and Philemon, out of the eighth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Pygmalion and the statute, out of the tenth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Cinyras and Myrrha, out of th”