All that live in human recollection are but a handful to the tribes
that have been forgotten. You will be kind enough, my sardonic friend,
to repress your sneers. I tell you that a great many worthy gentlemen
and ladies have been shouldered out of the Pantheon who deserved at
least a corner, and who would not while living have given sixpence to
insure immortality, so certain were they of monuments harder than
brass. The murrain among the poets is the severest. For, in the first
place, a fine butterfly may have a pin stuck through his stomach even
while living. There are Bavius and Maevius, who have been laughed at
since Virgil wrote his Third Eclogue. Now why does the world laugh?
What does the world know of either? They were stupid and malevolent,
were they? Pray, how do you know that they were? You have Virgil's word
for it. But how do you know that Virgil was just? It might have been
the east wind; it might have been an indigestion; it might have been
Virgil's vanity; it might have been all a mistake. When a man has once
been thoroughly laughed down, people take his stupidity for granted;
and although he may grow as wise as Solomon, living he is considered a
fool, dying he is regarded as a fool, and dead he is remembered as a
fool.
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