XXIX. "Ay, but to die, and go we know not where !" Measure for Measure. "Plains immense, interminable meads, And vast savannas, where the wand'ring eye, THOMSON. "Ye shall have miracles; ay, sound ones too, "Call in the barber! If the tale be long, * MOORE. MIDDLETON. THERE are few sentiments of that great man Benjamin Franklin for which he is more to be revered than for those respecting the burial-place of the departed. The graveyard is, and should ever be deemed, a holy spot; consecrated, not by the cold formalities of unmeaning ceremony, but by the solemn sacredness of the heart. Who that has committed to earth's cold bosom the relics of one dearer, perchance, than existence, can ever after pass the burial-ground with a careless heart. There is nothing which more painfully jars upon my own feelings-if I may except that wanton desecration of God's sanctuary in some sections of our land * "I will never, if possible, pass a night in any place where the graveyard is neglected." Franklin has no monument! for a public commitia-than to see the graveyard slighted and abused. It is like wounding the memory of a buried friend. And yet it is an assertion which cannot be refuted, that, notwithstanding the reverence which, as a people, we have failed not to manifest for the memory of our dead, the same delicate regard and obsequy is not with us observed in the sacred rites as among the inhabitants of the Eastern hemisphere. If, indeed, we may be permitted to gather up an opinion from circumstances of daily notoriety, it would seem that the plat of ground appropriated as a cemetery in many of the villages of our land was devoted to this most holy of purposes solely because useless for every other; as if, after seizing upon every spot for the benefit of the living, this last poor remnant was reluctantly yielded as a resting-place for the departed. And thus has it happened that most of the burialgrounds of our land have either been located in a region so lone and solitary, "You scarce would start to meet a spirit there," or they have been thrust out into the very midst of business, strife, and contention; amid the glare of sunshine, noise, and dust; "the gaudy, babbling, and remorseless day," with hardly a wall of stones to protect them from the inroads of unruly brutes or brutish men. It is as if the rites of sepulture were refused, and the poor boon of a resting-place in the bosom of our common mother denied to her offspring; as if, in our avarice of soul, we grudged even the last narrow house destined for all; and fain would resume the last, the only gift our departed ones may retain. Who would not dread "to die" and have his lifeless clay deposited thus! Who would not, ere the last fleeting particle of existence had "ebbed to its finish," and the feeble breathing had forsaken its tenement for ever, pour forth the anguish of his spirit in the melancholy prayer, "When breath and sense have left this clay, In yon damp vault, oh lay me not! But kindly bear my bones away To some lone, green, and sunny spot." Reverence for the departed is ever a beautiful feature of humanity, and has struck us with admiration for nations of our race who could boast but few redeeming traits beside. It is, moreover, a circumstance not a little remarkable in the history of funeral obsequy, that veneration for the departed has prevailed in a ratio almost inverse to the degree of civilization. Without attempting to account for this circumstance, or to instance the multitude of examples which recur to every mind in its illustration, I would only refer to that deep religion of the soul which Nature has implanted in the heart of her simple child of the Western forests, teaching him to preserve and to honour the bones of his fathers! And those mysterious mausoleums of a former race! do they convey no meaning as they rise in lonely grandeur from our beautiful prairies, and look down upon the noble streams which for ages have dashed their dark floods along their base! But a few years have passed away since this empire valley of the West was first pressed by the footstep of civilized man; and, if we except those aged sepulchres of the past, the cities of the dead hardly yet range side by side with the cities of the living. But this cannot always be; even in this distant, beautiful land, death must come; and here it doubtless has come, as many an anguished bosom can witness. Is it not, then, meet, while the busy tide of worldly enterprise is rolling heavily forth over this fair land, and the costly structures of art and opulence are rising on every side, as by the enchantment of Arabian fiction-is it not meet that, amid the pauses of excitement, a solitary thought should linger around that spot, which must surely, reader, become the last resting-place of us all! I have often, in my wanderings through this pleasant land, experienced a thrill of delight which I can hardly describe, to behold, on entering a little Western hamlet, a neat white paling rising up beneath the groves in some green, sequestered spot, whose object none could mistake. Upon some of these, simple as they were, seemed to have been bestowed more than ordinary care; for they betrayed an elaborateness of workmanship and a delicacy of design sought for in vain among the ruder habitations of the living. This is, surely, as it should be; and I pity the man whose feelings cannot appreciate such a touching, beautiful expression of the heart. I have alluded to Franklin, and how pleasant it is to detect the kindly, household emotions of our nature throbbing beneath the starred, dignified breast of philosophy and science. FRANKLIN, the statesman, the sage; he who turned the red lightnings from their wild pathway through the skies, and rocked the iron cradle of the mightiest democracy on the globe! we gaze upon him with awe and astonishment; involuntarily we yield the lofty motto presented by the illustrious Frenchman.* Eripuit fulmen cœlo, mox sceptra tyrannis." But when we behold that towering intellect descending from its throne, and intermingling its emotions even with those of the lowliest mind, admiration and reverence are lost in love. 66 The preceding remarks, which have lengthened out themselves far beyond my design, were suggested by the loveliness of the site of the graveyard of the little village of Decatur. I was struck with its beauty on entering the place. It was near sunset; in the distance slept the quiet hamlet; upon my right, beneath the grove, peeped out the white paling through the glossy foliage; and as the broad, deep shadows of summer evening streamed lengthening through the trees wide over the landscape, that little spot seemed to my mind the sweetest one in the scene. And should not the burialground be ever thus! for who shall tell the emotions which may swell the bosom of many a dying emigrant who here shall find his long, last rest? In that chill hour, how will the thought of home, kindred, friendships, childhood-scenes, come rushing over the memory! and to lay his bones in the VOL. II.-H * Thurgot. |