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 solitude about
the grave may be but the offspring of an overwrought 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!
TRAITS OF INDIAN CHARACTER.
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