LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 347 



survive only in fine print at the page's foot. At the 

 banquet of fame they sit below the salt. After all, per- 

 haps, the next best thing to being famous or infamous 

 is to be utterly forgotten, for this also is to exjhieve a 

 kind of definite result by living. To hang on the peril- 

 ous edge of immortality by the nails, liable at any mo- 

 ment to drop into the fathomless ooze of oblivion, is at 

 best a questionable beatitude. And yet sometimes the 

 merest barnacles that have attached themselves to the 

 stately keels of Dante or Shakespeare or Milton have 

 an interest of their own by letting us know in what re- 

 mote waters those hardy navigators went a pearl-fishing. 

 Has not Mr. Dyce traced Shakespeare's " dusty death " 

 to Anthony Copley, and Milton's ''back resounded 

 Death ! " to Abraham Fraunce 1 Nay, is it not Bernard 

 de Ventadour's lark that sings forever in the diviner air 

 of Dante's Paradise 1 



" Quan vey laudeta mover 



De joi sas alas contra'l rai, 



Que s'oblida e s laissa cazer 



Per la doussor qu 'al cor li 'n vai." 

 ' Qual lodoletta che in acre si spazia, 



Priina cantando, e poi tace contents 



Dell' ultima dolcezza che la sazia." 



We are not sure that Bernard's " Que s'oblida e s 

 laissa cazer " is not sweeter than Dante's " tace conten- 

 ta," but it was plainly the doussor that gave its cue to 

 the greater poet's memory, and he has improved on it 

 with that exquisite ultima, as his master Virgil some- 

 times did on Homer. 



But authors whose interest for us is mainly biblio- 

 graphic belong rather in such collections as Mr. Alli- 

 bone's. As literature they are oppressive ; as items of 

 literary history they find their place in that vast list 

 which records not only those named for promotion, but 

 also the killed, wounded, and missing in the Battle of 



