TEMPUS EDAX RERUM.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17740, 17 April 1923, Page 10

TEMPUS EDAX RERUM.

TO THE SDITOB OF "THJS FSE33."'

Sir, —I have just come across the following, wliicli is very apt just now. I am copying it from Sainte-Bouve's Essay on "Taine's English Literature." He is referring to Sir Thoiiias Brown-(l6os-1<382) —from his ''Urn Burial" . "But the iniquity of oblivion blindly "scattereth her poppy, and deals wit-i the memory of 111011 without distinction to merit of perpetuity. Y\ ho can butpity the founder of the Pyramids;r iiertstrutus lives that burnt the temple of D'iaualie is almost tint built Time hath spared tho epitaph o> Adrian's horse, confounded that of himself. . . All was, vanity, leading tno .wind, and folly. Tho Egyptian "J 11 " 1 ' mies, which Canibyses or time ' l: ||' spared, avaric© now consumetn. Mnmniv is become merchandise, Mizraim cures wounds, and Phaiaoh is sol-' for Balsams. . . . The greater pari, must be content to be as though they had not been, to be found in the register of God', not in the record of man. Twenty-seven names make up the first story before the flood, «ind tho recorded iKun&a ever since contain not pnJ living century." And Sainte-Be'uve adds: "That is a passage which must be remembered and repeated even -in the presence of the legitimate pride or science reconquering the past by fragments. Yes, even alter reading only other day M. d© Rouge's interesting and lucid' report about Egyptian antiquities and the few further namea rescued from oblivion, I could not help repeating the passage. "What gaps there are: gaps out of proportion to what we know and ever shall know! What enormous, irreparable blanks! Chance, chance, if we wish to be tnie, your part will never bo recognised as gieat as it deservesi, nor shall we ever pierce deep enough, into the philosophy of history."—Yours, eto. a YMMUM.