I have been struck,
also, with the superiority of many of the old sepulchral
inscriptions. There was a noble way in former times of saying
things simply, and yet saying them proudly; and I do not know an
epitaph that breathes a loftier consciousness of family worth and
honorable lineage than one which affirms of a noble house that
"all the brothers were brave and all the sisters virtuous."
In the opposite transept to Poet's Corner stands a monument which
is among the most renowned achievements of modern art, but which
to me appears horrible rather than sublime. It is the tomb of
Mrs. Nightingale, by Roubillac. The bottom of the monument is
represented as throwing open its marble doors, and a sheeted
skeleton is starting forth. The shroud is falling from his
fleshless frame as he launches his dart at his victim. She is
sinking into her affrighted husband's arms, who strives with vain
and frantic effort to avert the blow. The whole is executed with
terrible truth and spirit; we almost fancy we hear the gibbering
yell of triumph bursting from the distended jaws of the spectre.
But why should we thus seek to clothe death with unnecessary
terrors, and to spread horrors round the tomb of those we love?
The grave should be surrounded by everything that might inspire
tenderness and veneration for the dead, or that might win the
living to virtue.
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