height of
insolency, that they cannot endure to be contradicted, [1934]"or hear of
anything but their own commendation," which Hierom notes of such kind of
men. And as [1935]Austin well seconds him, "'tis their sole study day and
night to be commended and applauded." When as indeed, in all wise men's
judgments, _quibus cor sapit_, they are [1936]mad, empty vessels, funges,
beside themselves, derided, _et ut Camelus in proverbio quaerens cornua,
etiam quas habebat aures amisit_, [1937]their works are toys, as an almanac
out of date, [1938]_authoris pereunt garrulitate sui_, they seek fame and
immortality, but reap dishonour and infamy, they are a common obloquy,
_insensati_, and come far short of that which they suppose or expect.
[1939]_O puer ut sis vitalis metuo_,

------"How much I dread
Thy days are short, some lord shall strike thee dead."

Of so many myriads of poets, rhetoricians, philosophers, sophisters, as
[1940]Eusebius well observes, which have written in former ages, scarce one
of a thousand's works remains, _nomina et libri simul cum corporibus
interierunt_, their books and bodies are perished together. It is not as
they vainly think, they shall surely be admired and immortal, as one told
Philip of Macedon insultingly, after a victory, that his shadow was no
longer than before, we may say to them,

"Nos demiramur, sed non cum deside vulgo,
Sed velut Harpyas, Gorgonas, et Furias."

"We marvel too, not as the vulgar we,
But as we Gorgons, Harpies, or Furies see."

Or if we do applaud, honour and admire, _quota pars_, how small a part, in
respect of the whole world, never so much as hears our names, how few take
notice of us, how slender a tract, as scant as Alcibiades' land in a map!
And yet every man must and will be immortal, as he hopes, and extend his
fame to our antipodes, when as half, no not a quarter of his own province
or city, neither knows nor hears of him--but say they did, what's a city to
a kingdom, a kingdom to Europe, Europe to the world, the world itself that
must have an end, if compared to the least visible star in the firmament,
eighteen times bigger than it? and then if those stars be infinite, and
every star there be a sun, as some will, and as this sun of ours hath his
planets about him, all inhabited, what proportion bear we to them, and
where's our glory? _Orbem terrarum victor Romanus habebat_, as he cracked
in Petronius, all the w