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Richard Fitch's Performance
"Of Applause," copied from John Huddlestone Wynne's Choice Emblems, engages in a common educational tactic of wedding moral content to artistic expression. One wonders why the instructor chose this cautionary tale for AFS students. As poor people of color in a slave nation, they faced little danger from the temptations of fame and fortune.
Student: Richard Fitch
Collection: Copies of Literary Work
Page: 28
Transcript
Of Applause
Fame
This strange power
Which every moment grows,
And gathers strength and vigour as she goes;
First small with fear, she swells to wondrous size,
And stalks on earth, or towrs above the skies,
Beneath her various plumes she ever bears
A thousand piercing eyes and listening ears,
And with a thousand mouths and babbling tongues appears.
Moral
Lo! to this goddess every mortal bends,
And still from pole to pole her sway extends:
Wisdom and virtue will forever claim
The deathless honours of an honest fame;
When these are wanting, weak is he who draws
His fund of glory from a rain of applause.