No doubt it is a grand affair to figure in the page of history, and be recorded among the "shining lights" of our generation. But there is good practical philosophy in the homely proverb which says, "Solid pudding is better than empty praise:" the reputation which wins current value during life is more useful to the possessor than the honor which comes after death; and which comes, as David says, in the _Rivals_, "exactly where we can make a shift to do without it." To have our merits appreciated two or three centuries hence, by generations yet unborn, and to have our works, whether with the pen or pencil, admired long after what was once our mortal substance is "stopping a beer-barrel," are very pleasing, poetical hallucinations for all who like to indulge in them; but the chances are, we shall know nothing of the matter, while it is quite certain that if we do, we shall set no value on it. Posterity, then, will be the chief gainers, and of all concerned the only party to whom we owe no obligations. The posterity, too, which emanates from the nineteenth century is much more likely to partake of the commercial than the romantic character, and to hold in higher reverence the memory of an ancestor who has left behind him £30,000 in bank stock or consols, than of one who has only bequeathed a marble monument in "Westminster's Old Abbey," a flourishing memoir in the "Lives of Illustrious Englishmen," or an epic poem in twenty-four cantos. I would not have it supposed that I depreciate the love of posthumous fame, or those "longings after immortality," which are powerful incentives to much that is good and great; but I am led into this train of reasoning, by hearing it so constantly objected as a misfortune to the actor, that his best efforts are but fleeting shadows, and can not survive him. This, being interpreted fairly, means that he can not gain _all_ that genius toils for, but he has won the lion's share, and ought to be satisfied.