Doubtless, much of excellence exists in modern times, and my lot has been so graciously cast by heaven, as often to bring me into contact with some of the purest and best, some who still retain traces of that disinterested benevolence, which the cynic pronounces to have fled from the earth. Yet, whether it be that more of sublimity really belonged to the worthies of ancient days, or whether the moral perceptions, like the physical tastes, of childhood possess a keenness, a zest, which never again return, I cannot say; but there seems to me nothing now on earth, like the hallowed, saintlike dignity of a few who were serenely awaiting their departure from this world, when I had just entered it.
Should any visitant of N——— ever direct his steps to the spot, where its lifeless inhabitants rest from their labours, perchance he might descry a simple white stone, bearing one inspired passage from the man of wisdom. At its foot, a smaller monument testifies, that Death smiteth the bud in its greenness, and that a mother had thrice wept. By its side, another speaks, in its marble stillness, the words of the moral poet,
Earth's highest station ends in, here he lies,
And "dust to dust!" concludes her noblest song."
Let the stranger, who discovers these vestiges, know that his foot presses the dust of her, of whom "the world was not worthy." And, if he believe that the righteous
