So that worthy fame floweth only from a worthy fountain, But from an ill-conditioned troop the best report is worthless.

And if the sensibility of genius count his injuries in secret,

Wisely will he hide the pains a hardened herd would mock :

For the great mind well may be sad to note such littleness in brethren,

The while he is comforted and happy in the firmest assurance of desert.

Cease awile, gentle scholar; seek other thoughts and themes;

Or dazzling Fame with wildfire light will lure us on for

ever.

For look, all subjects of the mind may range beneath its banner,

And time would fail and patience droop, to count that numerous host.

The mine is deep, and branching wide, and who can work it out?

Years of thought would leave untold the boundless topic, Fame.

Every matter in the universe is linked in suchwise unto others,

That a deep full treatise upon one thing might reach to the history of all things:

And before some single thesis had been followed out in all its branches,

The wandering thinker would be lost in the pathless forest of existence.

What were the matter or the spirit, that hath no part in Fame?

Where were the fact irrelevant, or the fancy out of place?

For the handling of that mighty theme should stretch from past to future,

Catching up the present on its way, as a traveler burdened with time.

All manner of men, their deeds, hopes, fortunes, and ambitions,

All manner of events and things, climate, circumstance, and custom,

Wealth and war, fear and hope, contentment, jealousy, devotion,

Skill and learning, truth, falsehood, knowledge of things gone and things to come,

Pride and praise, honor and dishonor, warnings, ensamples, emulations,

The excellent in virtues, and the reprobate in vice, with the cloud of indifferent spectators, Wave on wave with flooding force throng the shoals of thought,

Filling that immeasurable theme, the height and depth of Fame.

With soul unsatisfied and mind dismayed, my feet have touched the threshold,

Fain to pour these flowers and fruits an offering on that altar:

Lo, how vast the temple, there are clouds within the

dome!

Yet might the huge expanse be filled, with volumes writ on Fame.

of Flattery.

Music is commended of the deaf; — but is that praise

despised?

I trow not with flattered soul the musician heard him

gladly.

Beauty is commended of the blind : but is that compliment misliking?

I trow not though false and insincere, woman listened greedily.

Vacant Folly talketh high of Learning's deepest reason; Is she hated for her hollowness?-learning held her wiser for the nonce.

The worldly and the sensual, to gain some end, did homage to religion :

And the good man gave thanks as for a convert, where others saw the hypocrite.

Yet none of these were cheated at the heart, nor steadily believed those flatteries;

They feared the core was rotten, while they hoped the skin was sound :

But the fruits have so sweet fragrance, and are verily so pleasant to the eyes,

It were an ungracious disenchantment to find them apples of Sodom.

So they labored to think all honest, winking hard with both their eyes;

And hushed up every whisper that could prove that praise absurd:

They willingly regard not the infirmities that make such worship vain,

And palliate to their own fond hearts the faults they will not see.

For the idol rejoiceth in his incense, and loveth not to shame his suppliants,

Should he seek to find them false, his honors die with

theirs :

An offering is welcome for its own sake, set aside the

giver,

And praise is precious to a man, though uttered by the parrot or the mocking-bird.

The world is full of fools; and sycophancy liveth on the foolish:

So he groweth great and rich, that fawning supple parasite.

Sometimes he boweth like a reed, cringing to the pom pousness of pride,

Sometimes he strutteth as a gallant, pampering the fickleness of vanity;

I have known him listen with the humble, enacting silent marveller,

To hear some purse-proud dunce-expound his] poverty of mind:

I have heard him wrangle with the obstinate, vowing that he will not be convinced,

When some weak youth hath wisely feared the chance of ill success :

Now, he will barely be a winner,to magnify thy triumphs afterward;

Now, he will hardly be a loser, but cannot cease to wonder at thy skill:

He laudeth his own worth, that the leader may have glory in his follower;

He meekly confesseth his unworthiness, that the leader may have glory in himself.

Many wiles hath he, and many modes of catching,
But every trap is selfishness, and every bait is praise.

Come, I would forewarn thee and forearm thee; for keen are the weapons of his warfare;

And, while my soul hath scorned him, I have watched his skill from far.

His thoughts are full of guile, deceitfully combining contrarieties,

And when he doeth battle in a man, he is leagued with traitorous Self-love.

Strange things have I noted, and opposite to common fancy;

We leave the open surface, and would plumb the secret

depths.

For he will magnify a lover, even to disparaging his mistress:

So much wisdom, goodness, grace, and all to be en

slaved ?

Till the Narcissus, self-enamored, whelmed in floods of

flattery;

Is cheated from the constancy and fervency of love by friendship's subtle praise.

Moreover, he will glorify a parent, even to the censure. of his child,

O degenerate scion, of a stock so excellent and noble ! Scant will be in well-earned praise of a son before his father;

And rarely commendeth to a mother her daughter's budding beauty:

Yet shall he extol the daughter to her father, and be warm about the son before his mother;

Knowing that self-love entereth not, to resist applause with jealousies.

Wisely is he sparing of hyperbole where vehemence of praise would humble,

For many a father liketh ill to be counted second to his to his son:

And shrewdly the flatterer hath reckoned on a self still lurking in the mother,

When his tongue was slow to speak of graces in the daughter.

But, if he descend a generation, to the grandsire, his. talk is of the grandson,

Because in such high praise he hideth the honors of the son;

And the daughter of a daughter may well exceed, in beauty, love, and learning,

For unconsciously old age perceived-she cannot be my

rival.

These are of the deep things of flattery: and many a shallow sycophant

Hath marvelled ill that praise of children seldom won their parents.

This therefore note, unto detection: flattery can sneex as well as smile;