Of Authorship.

Great is the dignity of Authorship: I magnify mine

office;

Albeit in much feebleness I hold it thus unworthily. For it is to be one of a noble band, the welfare of

the world,

Whose haunt is on the lips of men, whose dwelling in their hearts,

Who are precious in the retrospect of Memory, and walk among the visions of Hope,

Who commune with the good for everlasting, and call the wisest, brother,

Whose voice hath burst the Silence, and whose

light is flung upon the Darkness,

-Flashing jewels on a robe of black, and harmony bounding out of chaos,

Who gladden empires with their wisdom, and bless to the farthest generation,

Doers of illimitable good, gainers of inestimable glory!

We speak but of the Magnates, we heed none humbler than the highest,

We take no count of sorry scribes, nor waste one thought upon the groundlings;

Our eyes are lifted from the multitude, groping in the dark with candles,

To gaze upon that firmament of praise, the constellated lamps of learning.

Everduring witnesses of Mind, undisputed evidence of Power,

Goodly volumes, living stones, build up their author's

temple;

Though of low estate, his rank is above princes,though needy, he hath worship of the rich, When Genius unfurleth on the winds his banner as

a mighty leader.

Just in purpose, and self-possessed in soul, lord of many talents,

The mental Croesus goeth forth, rejoicing in his

wealth;

Keen and clear perception gloweth on his forehead like a sunbeam,

He readeth men at a glance, and mists roll away before him ;

The wise have set him as their captain, the foolish are rebuked at his presence,

The excellent bless him with their prayers, and the wicked praise him by their curses;

His voice, mighty in operation, stirreth up the world as a trumpet,

And kings account it honour to be numbered of his friends.

Rare is the worthiness of Authorship: I justify mine office;

Albeit fancies weak as mine credit not the calling. For it addeth immortality to dying facts, that are ready to vanish away,

Embalming as in amber the poor insects of an hour; Shedding upon stocks and stones the tender light of

interest,

And illumining dark places of the earth, with radiance of classic lustre.

It hath power to make past things present, and availeth for the present in the future,

Delivering thoughts, and words, and deeds, from the outer darkness of oblivion:

Where are the sages and the heroes, giants of old

time?

Where are the mighty kings, that reigned before

Agamemnon?

Alas, they lie unwept, unhonoured hidden in the

midnight:

Alas, for they died unchronicled: their memorial perished with them.

Where are the nobles of Nineveh, and mitred rulers of Babylon?

Where are the lords of Edom, and the royal pontiffs of Thebais?

The golden Satrap, and the Tetrarch, the Hun, and the Druid, and the Celt?

The merchant princes of Phoenicia, and the minds that fashioned Elephanta?

Alas, for the poet hath forgotten them; and lo! they are outcasts of Memory;

Alas, that they are withered leaves, sapless and fallen from the chaplet of fame.

Speak, Etruria, whose bones be these, entombed with costly care,—

Tell out, Herculaneum, the titles that have sounded in those thy palaces,

Lycian Xanthus, thy citadels are mute, and the honour of their architects hath died;

Copan and Palenque, dreamy ruins in the West, the forest hath swallowed up your sculptures; (*)

Syracuse, how silent of the past!-Carthage, thou art blotted from remembrance!

Egypt, wondrous shores, ye are buried in the sandhills of forgetfulness!

Alas,-for in your glorious youth, Time himself was young,

And none durst wrestle with that Angel, iron-sinewed bridegroom of Space;

So he flew by, strong upon the wing, nor dropped one failing feather,

Wherewith some hoary scribe might register their honour and renown.

Beyond the broad Atlantic, in the regions of the

setting sun,

Ask of the plume-crowned Incas, that ruled in old

Peru,

Ask of grand Caziques, and priests of the pyramids in Mexico,

Ask of a thousand painted tribes, high nobility of

Nature,

Who, once, could roam their own Elysian plains, free, generous, and happy,

Who, now, degraded and in exile, having sold their fatherland for nought,

Sink and are extinguished in the western seas, even

as the sun they follow,—