idle and the dastard.
This English Land, here and now, is the summary of what was found
of wise, and noble, and accordant with God's Truth, in all the
generations of English Men. Our English Speech is speakable
because there were Hero-Poets of our blood and lineage;
speakable in proportion to the number of these. This Land of
England has its conquerors, possessors, which change from epoch
to epoch, from day to day; but its real conquerors, creators,
and eternal proprietors are these following, and their
representatives if you can find them: All the Heroic Souls that
ever were in England, each in their degree; all the men that
ever cut a thistle, drained a puddle out of England, contrived a
wise scheme in England, did or said a true and valiant thing in
England. I tell thee, they had not a hammer to begin with; and
yet Wren built St. Paul's: not an articulated syllable; and yet
there have come English Literatures, Elizabethan Literatures,
Satanic-School, Cockney-School, and other Literatures;--once
more, as in the old time of the _Leitourgia,_ a most waste
imbroglio, and world-wide jungle and jumble; waiting terribly to
be 'well-edited,' and 'well-burnt!' Arachne started with
forefinger and thumb, and had not even a distaff; yet thou seest
Manchester, and Cotton Cloth, which will shelter naked backs, at
two-pence an ell.

Work? The quantity of done and forgotten work that lies silent
under my feet in this world, and escorts and attends me, and
supports and keeps me alive, wheresoever I walk or stand,
whatsoever I think or do, gives rise to reflections! Is it not
enough, at any rate, to strike the thing called 'Fame' into total
silence for a wise man? For fools and unreflective persons, she
is and will be very noisy, this 'Fame,' and talks of her
'immortals' and so forth: but if you will consider it, what is
she? Abbot Samson was not nothing because nobody _said_ anything
of him. Or thinkest thou, the Right Honourable Sir Jabesh
Windbag can be made something by Parliamentary Majorities and
Leading Articles? Her 'immortals!' Scarcely two hundred years
back can Fame recollect articulately at all; and there she but
maunders and mumbles. She manages to recollect a Shakspeare or
so; and prates, considerably like a goose, about him;--and in
the rear of that, onwards to the birth of Theuth, to Hengst's
Invasion, and the bosom of Eternity, it was all blank; and the
respectable Teutonic Languages, Teuto