on the high road
to fame, if I had honestly determined to win immortality or perish in
the attempt, I should look upon the gentleman with no clothing except a
scanty forelock, and with no personal property save his scythe and
hour-glass, as my greatest enemy,--and I should behold the perpetual
efforts made to kill him with perfect complacency. This, I know, is not
regarded as a strictly moral act; for this murderer of murderers is
very much caressed by those who, in the name of Moses, would send a
poor devil to his hempen destiny for striking an unlucky blow. How
continually is it beaten upon the juvenile tympanum,--"Be careful of
Time,"--"Time is money,"--"Make much of Time"! Certainly, I do not know
what he has done to merit consideration so tender. The best that can be
said of old Edax Rerum is that he has an unfailing appetite, and is not
very fastidious about his provender,--and that, if he does take heavy
toll of the wheat, he also rids the world of no small amount of chaff.
But 'tis such a prodigious maw!

You think, Don Bob, that you know the name of every man who has
distinguished himself since the days of Deucalion and Pyrrha. Let us
see how much you know. I believe that in your day you had something to
do with the new edition of the Aldine Poets. I therefore ask you, in
the name of an outraged gentleman, who is too dead to say much for
himself, why you left out of the series my friend Mr. Robert Baston.
You have used Baston very ill. Baston was an English poet. Baston lived
in the fourteenth century, and wove verses in Nottingham. When proud
Edward went to Scotland, he took Baston along with him to sing his
victories. Unhappily, Bruce caged the bird, and compelled him to amend
his finest poems by striking out "Edward," wherever the name of that
revered monarch occurred, and inserting "Robert," which, as I have
said, he was obliged to do,--and a very ridiculous mess the process
must have made of Mr. Baston's productions. This is all I know of
Baston; but is not this enough to melt the toughest heart? No wonder he
prologued his piping after the following dismal fashion:--

"In dreary verse my rhymes I make,
Bewailing whilst such theme I take."

However, Baston was a monk of the Carmelite species, and I hope he bore
his agonies with religious bravery.

And now let us make a skip down to Charles Aleyn, _temp._ Charles I.
"of blessed memory." A Sidney collegian of Cambridge, he began life as
an usher in t