For the hungry young nestlings His providence fends,
And over all nature His goodness extends.

Joas, act II, scene VII. | The parody of the second line, Mais sa bonté s’arrête à la littérature, ("But His bounty draws the line at authors"), is ascribed to Léon Gozlan in Maxime du Camp’s Souvenirs Littéraires, i, 226. R. Alexandre, Musée de la Conversation, 3rd ed. (1897), p. 353. W. F. H. King, Classical and Foreign Quotations, 3rd ed. (1904), no. 201