With the people of the south, by whom the opposite part of the earth is
possessed, you have no intercourse; and by how small a tract do you
communicate with the countries of the north? The territory which you
inhabit is no more than a scanty island, inclosed by a small body of
water, to which you give the name of the great sea and the Atlantick
ocean. And even in this known and frequented continent, what hope can
you entertain, that your renown will pass the stream of Ganges, or the
cliffs of Caucasus? or by whom will your name be uttered in the
extremities of the north or south, towards the rising or the setting
sun? So narrow is the space to which your fame can be propagated; and
even there how long will it remain?"
He then proceeds to assign natural causes why fame is not only narrow in
its extent, but short in its duration; he observes the difference
between the computation of time in earth and heaven, and declares, that
according to the celestial chronology, no human honours can last a
single year.
Such are the objections by which Tully has made a shew of discouraging
the pursuit of fame; objections which sufficiently discover his
tenderness and regard for his darling phantom. Homer, when the plan of
his poem made the death of Patroclus necessary, resolved, at least, that
he should die with honour; and therefore brought down against him the
patron god of Troy, and left to Hector only the mean task of giving the
last blow to an enemy whom a divine hand had disabled from resistance.
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