Egypt opened on the theme, dressing up her gods in qualities; Horns of power, feathers of the swift, mitres of catholic dominion, The sovereign asp, the circle everlasting, the crook and thong of justice, By many mystic shapes and sounds displayed the idol's name. Thereafter, high-plumed warriors, the chieftains of Etruria and Troy, And Xerxes, urging on his millions to the tomb of pride, Thermopylæ, And Hiero with his bounding ships, all figured at the prow, And Rome's Prætorian standards, piled with strange devices, And stout crusaders pressing to the battle, clad in sable mail; These all in their speaking symbols, earned, or wore, a name. Eve; the mother of all living, and Abraham, father of a multitude, Jacob, the supplanter, and David, the beloved, and all the worthies of old time, Noah, who came for consolation, and Benoni, son of sorrow, Kings and prophets, children of the East, owned each his title of significance. There be names of high descent, and thereby storied honours; Names of fair renown, and therein characters of merit: But to lend the lowborn noble names, is to shed upon them ridicule and evil; Yea, many weeds run rank in pride, if men have dubbed them cedars. And to herald common mediocrity with the noisy notes of fame, Tendeth to its deeper scorn; as if it were to call the mole a mammoth. Yet shall ye find the trader's babe dignified with sounding titles, And little hath the father guessed the harm he did his child: For either may they breed him discontent, a peevish repining at his station, Or point the finger of despite at the mule in the trappings of an elephant: And it is a kind of theft to filch appellations from the famous, A soiling of the shrines of praise with folly's vulgar herd. Prudence hath often gone ashamed for the name they added to his father's, If minds of mark and great achievements bore it well before; For he walketh as the jay in the fable, though not by his own folly, Another's fault hath compassed his misfortune, making him a martyr to his name.