f the ten thousand or so names here
recorded he has ever heard of before, let him make this myriad the
denominator of a fraction to which the dozen perennial fames shall
be the numerator, and he will find that his dividend of a chance at
escaping speedy extinction is not worth making himself unhappy about.
Should some statistician make such a book the basis for constructing the
tables of a fame-insurance company, the rates at which alone policies
could be safely issued would put them beyond the reach of all except
those who did not need them. After all, perhaps, the next best thing to
being famous or infamous is to be utterly forgotten; for that, at least,
is to accomplish a decisive result by living. To hang on the perilous
edge of immortality by the nails, liable at any moment to drop into the
waters of Oblivion, is at best a questionable beatitude.

But if a dictionary of this kind give rise to some melancholy
reflections, it is not without suggestions of a more soothing character.
We are reminded by it of the tender-heartedness of Chaucer, who, in the
"House of Fame," after speaking of Orpheus and Arion, (Mr. Tyrwhitt
calls him Orion,) and Cheiron and Glasgerion, has a kind word for the
lesser minstrels that play on pipes made of straw,--

"Such as have the little herd-groomes
That keepen beastes in the broomes."

This is the true Valhalla of Mediocrity, the _libra d'oro_ of the
_onymi-anonymi_, of the never-named authors who exist only in
name,--Parson Adams would be here, had he found a printer for his
sermons, Mr. Primrose for his tracts on Monogamy,--and not merely
such _nominum umbroe_ of the past, but that still stranger class of
ancient-moderns, preterite-presents, dead (and something more) as
authors, but still to be met with in the flesh as solid men and
brethren,--privileged, alas, to outstay cockcrow when they drop in of an
evening to give you their views on the aims and tendencies of periodical
literature. Will it be nothing, if we should be untimely snatched
away from our present sphere of usefulness, to those shadowy [Greek:
pleiones] who lived too soon to enjoy their monthly dip in the
ATLANTIC,--will it be nothing, we say, that our orphaned Papyrorcetes,
junior, will be able to read the name of his lamented parent on the
nine-hundredth page of Allibone,--occupying, at least, an entire line,
and therefore (as we gather from a hasty calculation) sure forever of
1/360,000th of the attention o