Vanity, says Shakespeare, keeps persons in favor with themselves who are out of favor with all others. He was not himself without a portion of that conceit which he says "in weakest bodies strongest works;" but there is this difference in his share of vanity,--he had, indeed, a genius the gods themselves might envy. He begins one of his sonnets,-- "Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme." And again he says:-- "Your monument shall be my gentle verse, Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read, And tongues to be your being shall rehearse When all the breathers of this world are dead; You still shall live--such virtue hath my pen-- Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men." Sydney Smith's definition occurs to us here, wherein he defines vanity as "proceeding from the supposition of possessing something better than the rest of the world possesses. Nobody is vain of possessing two legs and two arms, because that is the precise quantity of either sort of limb which everybody possesses." Fielding bluntly tells the truth when he says, "There is scarcely any man, however much he may despise the character of a flatterer, but will condescend, in the meanest manner, to flatter himself." We have seen that even Diogenes was gratified by popular praise, not to say flattered thereby; while the fact of his occupying so notable and peculiar an abode argued a degree of pride and vanity. Did not Thoreau also affect humility in his rudely built cabin on the borders of Walden Pond? Certainly the idea of Diogenes and his tub must have occurred to so classic a scholar as the Concord hermit. Southey's appeal to posterity to do him justice, in his letter to his publisher, will be remembered: "My day and popularity will come when I shall have said good-night to the world." De Quincey remarks that posterity is very hard to get at; and Swift thought the present age altogether too free in laying taxes on the next. "Future ages shall talk of this; they shall be famous to all posterity;" whereas their time and thoughts, he believed, would be taken up with present things, as ours are now. Carlyle thought Dr. Johnson's carelessness as to future fame a very remarkable trait in his character. The vanity of authors is their shame, and ought to be their secret. While it does not necessarily detract from the merit of their excellent productions, it prejudices all by belittling them in our estimation. Oftentimes the career of these notables, as we have seen, has been one of surmounted difficulties and hardships endured for the sake of their chosen calling, embittering their nature, perhaps, yet at the same time tincturing them with an exultant spirit of success.