Some lie beneath the churchyard stone,
And some before the speaker.
School and Schoolfellows. W.M. PRAED.
Like one,
Who having, unto truth, by telling of it,
Made such a sinner of his memory,
To credit his own lie.
The Tempest, Act i. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
FAME.
Fame is the shade of immortality,
And in itself a shadow. Soon as caught,
Contemned; it shrinks to nothing in the grasp.
Night Thoughts, Night VII. DR. E. YOUNG.
And what is Fame? the meanest have their day,
The greatest can but blaze, and pass away.
First Book of Horace, Epistle VI. A. POPE.
What's Fame? A fancied life in others' breath,
A thing beyond us, e'en before our death.
Essay on Man, Epistle IV. A. POPE.
What is the end of Fame? 'tis but to fill
A certain portion of uncertain paper:
Some liken it to climbing up a hill,
Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapor:
For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill,
And bards burn what they call their "midnight taper,"
To have, when the original is dust,
A name, a wretched picture, and worse bust.
Don Juan, Canto I. LORD BYRON.
Her house is all of Echo made
Where never dies the sound;
And as her brows the clouds invade,
Her feet do strike the ground.
Fame. B. JONSON.
What shall I do to be forever known,
And make the age to come my own?
The Motto. A. COWLEY.
The best-concerted schemes men lay for fame
Die fast away: only themselves die faster.
The far-famed sculptor, and the laurelled bard,
Those bold insurancers of deathless fame,
Supply their little feeble aids in vain.
The Grave. R. BLAIR.