What honor could his
name have derived from being mingled in dusty companionship with the
epitaphs and escutcheons and venal eulogiums of a titled multitude?
What would a crowded corner in Westminster Abbey have been, compared
with this reverend pile, which seems to stand in beautiful
loneliness as his sole mausoleum! The solicitude about the grave may
be but the offspring of an over-wrought sensibility; but human
nature is made up of foibles and prejudices; and its best and
tenderest affections are mingled with these factitious feelings. He
who has sought renown about the world, and has reaped a full harvest
of worldly favor, will find, after all, that there is no love, no
admiration, no applause, so sweet to the soul as that which springs up
in his native place. It is there that he seeks to be gathered in peace
and honor among his kindred and his early friends. And when the
weary heart and failing head begin to warn him that the evening of
life is drawing on, he turns as fondly as does the infant to the
mother's arms, to sink to sleep in the bosom of the scene of his
childhood.
How would it have cheered the spirit of the youthful bard when,
wandering forth in disgrace upon a doubtful world, he cast back a
heavy look upon his paternal home, could he have foreseen that, before
many years, he should return to it covered with renown; that his
name should become the boast and glory of his native place; that his
ashes should be religiously guarded as its most precious treasure; and
that its lessening spire, on which his eyes were fixed in tearful
contemplation, should one day become the beacon, towering amidst the
gentle landscape, to guide the literary pilgrim of every nation to his
tomb!
THE END
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