going down to posterity

"... dumb beasts prefer death to slavery!  Liberty lost, they can die without the excitement of the world's applause, or hopes of a grateful posterity!"  (March 1853)

Melville on Cooper:

"He was a great, robust-souled man, all whose merits are not even yet fully appreciated.  But a grateful posterity will take the best of Care of Fenimore Cooper."  (December 1851)

 Melville on Melville:

My dear Sir, they begin to patronize. All Fame is patronage. Let me be infamous: there is no patronage in that. What “reputation” H.M. has is horrible. Think of it ! To go down to posterity is bad enough, any way; but to go down as a “man who lived among the cannibals”! When I speak of posterity, in reference to myself, I only mean the babies who will probably be born in the moment immediately ensuing upon my giving up the ghost. I shall go down to some of them, in all likelihood. Typee will be given to them, perhaps, with their gingerbread. 
(Letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne, early May 1851)