What is this the sound and rumor? What is this that all men hear, Like the wind in hollow valleys when the storm is drawing near, Like the rolling of the ocean in the eventide of fear? 'Tis the people marching on

Rumor 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.

Rumor doth double, like the voice and echo, The numbers of the feared.

I will be gone, That pitiful rumor may report my flight To consolate thine ear.

Buy the rumor, sell the fact.

Some report elsewhere whatever is told them; the measure of fiction always increases, and each fresh narrator adds something to what he has heard. [Lat., Hi narrata ferunt alio; mensuraque ficti Crescit et auditus aliquid novus adjicit auctor.]