On Observing some Names of Little Note Recorded in the Biographia Britannica. 
By Cowper, William. 


Oh, fond attempt to give a deathless lot
To names ignoble, born to be forgot!
In vain recorded in historic page,
They court the notice of a future age:
Those twinkling, tiny lustres of the land
Drop one by one from Fame's neglecting hand;
Lethean gulfs receive them as they fall,
And dark oblivion soon absorbs them all.
So when a child, as playful children use,
Has burnt to tinder a stale last-years' news,
The flame extinct, he views the roving fire - 
There goes my lady, and there goes the squire,
There goes the parson -O illustrious spark!
And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.