TO AN OLD LAW-BOOK.
>' I "'IS only three years since you entered the world, -*- Since you came from the publisher's hand. Then your fame with the speed of an arrow was hurled Through the length and the breadth of the land. Amongst all the lawyers your name was well known, You were praised by the Bench and the Bar; In favor with students you quickly had grown, You were voted best law-book by far. At the height of your fame, though, a statute was passed Which rendered you useless and old; For new books were published, and then you were cast Most unfeelingly out in the cold. 'Though once so well known, now unheard is your name, Stowed away on the shelf there you lie; Oh, is it not foolish to run after fame, When all fame can so easily die? Poor volume, 'tis useless to pine or to fret At the way you've been treated, for when You think, you must own, that the treatment you've met, Is the fate of the greatest of men. The mightiest heroes who ever were born, They have only been famous a day, They are honored, they're praised, they are famous at morn, And by ev'ning their fame's passed away. Oh, volume, consider, great men, like yourself. When they die on one side are then thrust, — They are laid in the grave, and that grave is the shelf, Where forgotten they crumble to dust. — Lays of a Lazy Lawyer.
