" And doubtless oblivion has
enwrapt in its folds many great men who have done great deeds, and
been forgotten. Augustine speaks of Romanianus as the greatest
genius that ever lived, and yet we know nothing of him but his
name; he is as much forgotten as the builders of the Pyramids.
Gordiani's epitaph was written in five languages, yet it sufficed
not to rescue him from oblivion.
Many, indeed, are the lives worthy of record that have remained
unwritten. Men who have written books have been the most
fortunate in this respect, because they possess an attraction for
literary men which those whose lives have been embodied in deeds
do not possess. Thus there have been lives written of Poets
Laureate who were mere men of their time, and of their time only.
Dr. Johnson includes some of them in his 'Lives of the Poets,'
such as Edmund Smith and others, whose poems are now no longer
known. The lives of some men of letters--such as Goldsmith,
Swift, Sterne, and Steele--have been written again and again,
whilst great men of action, men of science, and men of industry,
are left without a record. (11)
We have said that a man may be known by the company he keeps in
his books. Let us mention a few of the favourites of the best-
known men. Plutarch's admirers have already been referred to.
Montaigne also has been the companion of most meditative men.
Although Shakspeare must have studied Plutarch carefully, inasmuch
as he copied from him freely, even to his very words, it is
remarkable that Montaigne is the only book which we certainly know
to have been in the poet's library; one of Shakspeare's existing
autographs having been found in a copy of Florio's translation of
'The Essays,' which also contains, on the flyleaf, the autograph
of Ben Jonson.
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