This playbook was the joy of Pott {12} -
Pott, for whom now no mortal grieves.
Our names, like his, remembered not,
Like his, shall flutter on fly-leaves!

At least in pleasant company
We bookish ghosts, perchance, may flit;
A man may turn a page, and sigh,
Seeing one's name, to think of it.
Beauty, or Poet, Sage, or Wit,
May ope our book, and muse awhile,
And fall into a dreaming fit,
As now we dream, and wake, and smile!



LITERARY FORGERIES



In the whole amusing history of impostures, there is no more
diverting chapter than that which deals with literary frauds. None
contains a more grotesque revelation of the smallness and the
complexity of human nature, and none--not even the records of the
Tichborne trial, nor of general elections--displays more pleasantly
the depths of mortal credulity. The literary forger is usually a
clever man, and it is necessary for him to be at least on a level
with the literary knowledge and critical science of his time. But
how low that level commonly appears to be! Think of the success of
Ireland, a boy of eighteen; think of Chatterton; think of Surtees of