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It is not easy to conceive of any important public
station in which Bryant would have proved accept-
able to so large a number as many of his contem-
poraries, in both those respects his inferiors, would
have proved, or of any public office which would
not have gained from him more dignity and con-
sideration than it could confer.

Republics in our day and "with all the modern
improvements" have in this respect no particular
advantage over any of their predecessors. The
stream of popular favor never rises higher than
its fountain, and public honors, like kissing, go as
much by favor now as when Cæsar's barber was
made a senator, and honored with a gorgeous mon-
ument for his noisy hostility to Pompey. 1

Though Bryant never received, nor if offered
would probably have accepted, any of those honors
and distinctions which are commonly regarded as
the only satisfactory reward of the successful poli-

____________________
1 Some Roman wag proposed the following epitaph for the
tomb of this barber, whose name was Licinus: --

"Marmoreo Licinus tumulo jacet, at Cato parvo,
Pompeius nullo;"

which may be thus Englished:-

"For Licinus we built a tomb of marble, oh how tall!
For Cato but a little one, for great Pompey none at all."

This epitaph recalls the fact that the commissioners of the New
York Central Park, in order to prevent the erection of a monu-
mental statue within its precincts to the notorious Tweed, made
a rule that no monument should be placed in the Park in honor of
any one who had not been dead five years, which rule for that
period, at least, excluded a bust of Bryant which was offered to
the commissioners, and before that time expired Tweed was in
the Tombs.

-216-

Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com

Publication Information: Book Title: William Cullen Bryant. Contributors: John Bigelow - author. Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company. Place of Publication: Boston. Publication Year: 1890. Page Number: 216.
    
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