O BLESSED LETTERS
O blessed letters! that combine in one
All ages past, and make one live with all,
By you we do confer with who are gone,
And the dead-living unto council call;
By you the unborn shall have communion
Of what we feel and what doth us befall.
What good is like to this,
To do worthy the writing, and to write
Worthy the reading, and the world's delight?
Though they [philosophers] write contemptu gloriae, yet, as Hieron observes, they will put their names to their books.—R. Burton.