sleep; For what was it that Alexander made such a Bustle in the world, but only to purchase an immortal Fame?  To what purpose were erected those stupendious Structures, entituled The Wonders of the World, viz. The walls of Babylon, the Rhodian Colossus, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Tomb of Mausolus, Diana’s Temple at Ephesus, the Pharoes Watch-Tower, and the Statue of Jupiter in Achaya, were they not all to purchase an immortal Fame thereby?  Nay, how soon was this Ambition bred in the heart of man? for we read in Genesis the 11th. how that presently after the Flood, the People journeying from the East, they said among themselves, Go to, let us build us a City, and a tower, whose Top may reach unto Heaven; and let us make us a Name.  Here you see the intent of their Building was to make them a Name, though God made it a Confusion; as all such other lofty Buildings built in Blood and Tyranny, of which nothing now remains but the Name; which is excellently exprest by Ovid in the Fifteenth Book of his Metamorphosis.

  Troy rich and powerful, which so proudly stood,
  That could for ten years spend such streams of Blood,
  For Buildings, only her old Ruines shows,
  For Riches, Tombs, which slaughter’d Sires enclose,
  Sparta, Mycenae, were of Greece the Flowers;
  So Cecrops City, and Amphion’s Towers: 
  Now glorious Sparta lies upon the ground. 
  Lofty Mycenae hardly to be found. 
  Of Oedipus his Thebes what now remains? 
  Or of Pandion’s Athens, but their Names?

So also Sylvester in his Du Bartus.

  Thebes, Babel, Rome, those proud Heaven-daring Wonders,
  Lo under ground in Dust and Ashes lie,
  For earthly Kingdoms even as men do die.

By this you may see that frail Paper is more durable than Brass or Marble; and the Works of the Brain more lasting than that of the Hand; so true is that old Verse,

  Marmora Maeonij vincunt Monumenta Libelli: 
  Vivitur ingenio, caetera mortis erunt.

  The Muses Works Stone-Monuments outlast. 
  ’Tis Wit keeps Life, all else Death will down cast.

Now though it is the desire of all Writers to purchase to themselves immortal Fame, yet is their Fate far different; some deserve Fame, and have it; others neither have it, nor deserve it; some have it not deserving, and others, though deserving, yet totally miss it, or have it not equall to their Deserts:  Thus have I known a well writ Poem, after a double expence of Brain to bring it forth, and of Purse to publish it to the World, condemned to the Drudgery of the Chandler or Oyl-man, or, which is worse, to light Tobacco.  I have read in Dr. Fuller’s Englands Worthies, that Mr. Nathanael Carpenter, that great Scholar for Logick, the Mathematicks, Geography, and Divinity, setting forth a Book of Opticks, he found, to his great grief, the Preface thereof in his Printers House, Casing Christmas-Pies, and could never after from his scattered Notes recover an Original thereof; thus (saith he) Pearls are no Pearls, when Cocks or Coxcombs find them.