What but his name is now known of Romanianus, who in St. Augustin's
opinion was the greatest genius that ever lived; and how little is his
very name known now! What is now remembered “of the men of renown
before the Flood?” Sir Walter Raleigh hath a chapter concerning them,
wherein he says, “of the war, peace, government and policy of these
strong and mighty men, so able both in body and wit, there is no
memory remaining; whose stories if they had been preserved, and what
else was then performed in that newness of the world, there could
nothing of more delight have been left to posterity. For the exceeding
long lives of men, (who to their strength of body and natural wits had
the experience added of eight and nine hundred years,) how much of
necessity must the same add of wisdom and understanding? Likely it is
that their works excelled all whatsoever can be told of after-times;
especially in respect of this old age of the world, when we no sooner
begin to know than we begin to die: according to Hippocrates, _Vita
brevis, ars longa, tempus præceps_, which is, life is short, art is
long, and time is headlong. And that those people of the first age
performed many things worthy of admiration, it may be gathered out of
these words of Moses, these were mighty men, which in old time were
men of renown.” What is known of them now? Their very names have
perished!
Who now can explain the difference between the Agenorian, the
Eratoclean, the Epigonian, and the Damonian sects of musicians, or
knows any thing more than the names of their respective founders,
except that one of them was Socrates's music-master?
What Roman of the age of Horace would have believed that a
contemporaneous Consul's name should only live to posterity, as a
record of the date of some one of the Poet's odes?
Who now remembers that memorable Mr. Clinch, “whose single voice, as
he had learned to manage it, could admirably represent a number of
persons at sport, and in hunting, and the very dogs and other
animals,”—himself a whole pack and a whole field in full cry: “but
none better than a quire of choristers chanting an Anthem”—himself a
whole quire.
“How subdued,” says Mr. David Laing, who has rescued from oblivion so
much that is worthy of being held in remembrance,—“how subdued is the
interest that attaches to a mere name, as for instance, to that of
Dunbar's contemporaries, Stobo, Quintyne, or St. John the Ross, whose
works have perished!”
Who was that famous singer nick-named Bonny Boots, who, because of his
excellent voice, or as Sir John Hawkins says, “for some other reason,
had permission to call Queen Elizabeth his Lady:” and of whom it is
said in the canzonet,
Our Bonny Boots could toot it,
Yea and foot it,
Say lusty lads, who now shall Bonny-Boot it?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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