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 of whoever reads the book through? This
is a handy and inexpensive substitute for the _imagines_ of the Roman
nobles; for those were inconvenient to pack on a change of lodgings,
liable to melt in warm weather,--even the elder Brutus himself might
soften in August,--and not readily salable, unless to a _novus homo_ who
wished to buy a set of ancestors ready-made, as some of our enthusiastic
genealogists are said to order a family-tree from the heraldic
nursery-man skilled to graft a slip of Scroggins on a stock of De Vere
or Montmorenci. Contemporary glory is comparatively dear; it is sold by
the column,--for columns have got over their Horatian antipathies; but
the bibliographer will thank you for the name of any man that has ever
printed a book, nay, his gratitude will glow in exact proportion to the
obscurity of the author, and one may thus confer perpetuity at