incible industry, and the
resolution with which he sets himself, year after year, and lustre after
lustre, to accomplish the task which his judgment and his zeal have
commanded him to pursue.

But I return to the question of literary fame. All these men, and men of
a hundred other classes, who laboured most commendably and gallantly in
their day, may be considered as swept away into the gulph of oblivion.
As Swift humorously says in his Dedication to Prince Posterity, "I had
prepared a copious list of Titles to present to your highness, as an
undisputed argument of the prolificness of human genius in my own time:
the originals were posted upon all gates and corner's of streets: but,
returning in a very few hours to take a review, they were all torn down,
and fresh ones put in their places. I enquired after them among readers
and booksellers, but in vain: the memorial of them was lost among men;
their place was no more to be found."

It is a just remark that had been made by Hume(5): "Theories of abstract
philosophy, systems of profound theology, have prevailed during one
age. In a successive period these have been universally exploded; their
absurdity has been detected; other theories and systems have supplied
their place, which again gave way to their successors; and nothing has
been experienced more liable to the revolutions of chance and fashion
than these pretended decisions of science. The case is not the same with
the beauties of eloquence and poetry. Just expressions of passion and
nature are sure, after a little time, to gain public applause, which
they maintain for ever. Aristotle and Plato and Epicurus and Descartes
may successively yield to each other: but Terence and Virgil maintain
an universal, undisputed empire over the minds of men. The abstract
philosophy of Cicero has lost its credit: the vehemence of his oratory
is still the object of our admiration."

(5) Essays, Part 1, Essay xxiii.

A few examples of the instability of fame will place this question in
the clearest light.

Nicholas Peiresk was born in the year 1580. His progress in knowledge
was so various and unprecedented, that, from the time that he was
twenty-one years of age, he was universally considered as holding the
helm of learning in his hand, and guiding the commonwealth of letters.
He died at the age of fifty-seven. The academy of the Humoristi at Rome
paid the most extraordinary honours to his memory; many of the cardinals
assi