"Our fathers," says Sir Thomas Browne, "find their
graves in our short memories, and sadly tell us how we may be
buried in our survivors." History fades into fable; fact becomes
clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription moulders from
the tablet; the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches,
pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand, and their epitaphs but
characters written in the dust? What is the security of a tomb or
the perpetuity of an embalmment? The remains of Alexander the
Great have been scattered to the wind, and his empty sarcophagus
is now the mere curiosity of a museum. "The Egyptian mummies,
which Cambyses or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth;
Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams."*
What then is to ensure this pile which now towers above me from
sharing the fate of mightier mausoleums? The time must come when
its gilded vaults which now spring so loftily, shall lie in
rubbish beneath the feet; when instead of the sound of melody and
praise the wind shall whistle through the broken arches and the
owl hoot from the shattered tower; when the garish sunbeam shall
break into these gloomy mansions of death, and the ivy twine
round the fallen column; and the fox-glove hang its blossoms
about the nameless urn, as if in mockery of the dead.
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