XVIII.

That suit in Chancery,[623]--which some persons plead In an appeal to the unborn, whom they, In the faith of their procreative creed, Baptize Posterity, or future clay,-- To me seems but a dubious kind of reed To lean on for support in any way; Since odds are that Posterity will know No more of them, than they of her, I trow.

XIX.[li]

Why, I'm Posterity--and so are you; And whom do we remember? Not a hundred. Were every memory written down all true, The tenth or twentieth name would be but blundered; Even Plutarch's Lives have but picked out a few, And 'gainst those few your annalists have thundered; And Mitford[624] in the nineteenth century Gives, with Greek truth, the good old Greek the lie.