Bacon's Essays, with annotations by Richard Whately and notes and a glossarial index, by Franklin Fiske Heard.

548 Of Ironoure and Reputation. [Essay lv.
run of his contemporaries. And if he has the courage to speak
out on these points, he must wait till the next generation for the
chief part at least of his popularity. The fame of clever but
puzzle-headed advocates of vulgar errors, will spring up like a
mushroom in a night, which rots in a day. His will be a tree.'seris factura nepotibus umbram.'
The author in question furnished a striking confirmation of
the paradox. In two or three years he and his book were
totally forgotten. He himself outlived, by a good many years,
his own mushroom celebrity. He went off, like a comet into
its aphelion, and became invisible. It would be difficult to find
a copy of his works, except at the trunk-maker's. And the
prophecy concerning him, in the conversation above recorded,
is probably forgotten also by those who took part in it.'Ipse
periere ruinae.'
The truth is, that what people in general most readily and
most cordially approve, is the echo of their own sentiments;
and whatever effect this may produce must be short-lived. We
hear of volcanic islands thrown up in a few days to a formidable size, and, in a few weeks or months, sinking down again
or washed away; while other islands, which are the summits
of banks covered with weed and drift sand, continue slowly increasing year after year, century after century. The man that
is in a hurry to see the full effect of his own tillage, should cultivate annuals, and not forest trees. The clear-headed lover of
truth is content to wait for the result of his. If he is wrong
in the doctrines he maintains, or the measures he proposes, at
least it is not for the sake of immediate popularity. If he is
right, it will be found out in time, though, perhaps, not in his
time. The preparers of the mummnies were (HFerodotus says)
driven out of the house by the family who had engaged their
services, with execrations and stones; but their work remains
sound after three thousand years.