Note 59 — Chapter VI
Reading edition
Should there be any to whom the foregoing estimate (which aims at being a candid one) may seem to render imperfect justice to the claims it deals with, I can only remind them that they have the same freedom as myself to indulge their opinion, and to assert it. Nay, I will even furnish them with four measured lines, by way of a text from which to expand their own more propitious adjudication; provided only, that they will accept them as conceived in any other spirit than that of ill-nature, which is hereby wholly disavowed:—
Ask not how long shall flourish yet his fame, Nor when shall cease the record of his glory! Oblivion dares not to efface his name, Since e’en the tomb cries out “Memento Mori!”