RUMOR RUMOR
The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, in time a Vergil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last some curious traveller from Lima will visit England, and give a description of the ruins of St. Paul's, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.
Horace Walpole—Letter to Horace Mann. Nov. 24, 1774.
| seealso = (See also {{sc|Barbauld)
I do love these ancient ruins.
We never tread upon them but we set
Our foot upon some reverend history.
John Webster—The Duchess of Malfi. Act
V. Sc. 3.
Where now is Britain?
- * * *
Even as the savage sits upon the stone
That marks where stood her capitals, and hears
The bittern booming in the weeds, he shrinks
From the dismaying solitude.
Henry Ktrke White—Time.
| seealso = (See also Barbauld)
Final Ruin fiercely drives
Her ploughshare o'er creation.
Young—Night Thoughts. Night LX. L. 167.
RUMOR
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>Vana quoque ad veros accessit fama timores.
Idle rumors were also added to well-founded
apprehensions.
Lucan—Pharsalia. I. 469.
Hi narrata ferunt alio; mensuraque ficti
Crescit et auditus aliquid novus adjicit auctor.
Some report elsewhere whatever is told them ;
the measure of fiction always increases, and
each fresh narrator adds something to what
he has heard.
Ovid—Metamorphoses. XII. 57.
Nam inimici famam non ita ut nata est ferunt.
Enemies carry a report in form different
from the original.
Plautus—Perm. III. 1. 23.
The flying rumours gather'd as they roll'd,
Scarce any tale was sooner heard than told;
And all who told it added something new.
And all who heard it made enlargements too.
| author = Pope
| work = Temple of Fame. L. 468.
I cannot tell how the truth may be;
I say the tale as 'twas said to me.
Scott—Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto H.
St 22.
I will be gone:
That pitiful rumour may report my flight,
To consolate thine ear.
AWs WcU That Ends Well. Act III. Sc. 2.
L. 129.
n Rumour is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures,
And of so easy and so plain a stop
That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still-discordant wavering multitude,
Can play upon it.
Henry IV. Pt. II. Act I. Induction. L. 15.
Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo,
The numbers of the fear'd.
Henry IV. Pt. II. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 97.
The rolling fictions grow in strength and size,
Each author adding to the former lies.
Swift—Tr. of Ovid. Examiner, No. 15.
What some invent the rest enlarge.
Swift—Journal of a Modern Lady.
Ad calamitatem quilibet rumor valet.
Every rumor is believed against the unfortunate.
Syrus—Maxims.
Haud semper erret fama; aliquando et elegit.
Rumor does not always err; it sometimes
even elects a man.
Tacitus—Agricola. IX.
There is nothing which cannot be perverted
by being told badly.
Terence—Phormio. Act IV.
Tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things
which they ought not.
I Timothy. V. 13.
Extemplo Libyae magnas it Fama per urbes:
Fama malum quo non velocius ullum;
Mobilitate viget, viresque acquirit eundo;
Parva metu primo; mox sese attollit in auras,
Ingrediturque solo, et caput inter nubilia condit.
Monstrum, horrendum ingens; cui quot sunt corpore plumse
Tot vigiles oculi subter, mirabile dictu,
Tot linguae, totidem ora sonant, tot subrigit
aures.
Straightway throughout the Libyan cities
flies rumor;—the report of evil things than
which nothing is swifter; it flourishes by its
very activity and gains new strength by its
movements; small at first through fear, it soon
raises itself aloft and sweeps onward along the
earth. Yet its head reaches the clouds. * * *
A huge and horrid monster covered with many
feathers: and for every plume a sharp eye, for
every pinion a biting tongue. Everywhere its
voices sound, to everything its ears are open.
Vergil—Æneid. IV. 173.
Fama volat parvam subito vulgata per urbem.
The rumor forthwith flies abroad, dispersed
throughout the small town.
Vergil—/Eneid. VIII. 554.
{{Hoyt quote
| num = | text = <poem>Lingua; centum sunt, oraque centum
Ferrea vox. It (rumour) has a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths, a voice of iron. Vergil—Georgics. II. 44. (Adapted.)
