In The Pelasgic, The
Etruscan, Or The British Story, There Is Nothing So Shadowy And
Unreal.
It is a wild and antiquated looking graveyard, overgrown with
bushes, on the high-road, about a quarter of a mile from and
overlooking the Merrimack, with a deserted mill-stream bounding
it on one side, where lie the earthly remains of the ancient
inhabitants of Dunstable.
We passed it three or four miles below
here. You may read there the names of Lovewell, Farwell, and
many others whose families were distinguished in Indian warfare.
We noticed there two large masses of granite more than a foot
thick and rudely squared, lying flat on the ground over the
remains of the first pastor and his wife.
It is remarkable that the dead lie everywhere under stones, -
_corpora_, we might say, if the measure allowed. When the stone
is a slight one, it does not oppress the spirits of the traveller
to meditate by it; but these did seem a little heathenish to us;
and so are all large monuments over men's bodies, from the
pyramids down. A monument should at least be "star-y-pointing,"
to indicate whither the spirit is gone, and not prostrate, like
the body it has deserted. There have been some nations who could
do nothing but construct tombs, and these are the only traces
which they have left. They are the heathen. But why these
stones, so upright and emphatic, like exclamation-points? What
was there so remarkable that lived? Why should the monument be
so much more enduring than the fame which it is designed to
perpetuate, - a stone to a bone? "Here lies," - "Here lies"; - why
do they not sometimes write, There rises? Is it a monument to
the body only that is intended? "Having reached the term of his
_natural_ life"; - would it not be truer to say, Having reached
the term of his _unnatural_ life? The rarest quality in an
epitaph is truth. If any character is given, it should be as
severely true as the decision of the three judges below, and not
the partial testimony of friends. Friends and contemporaries
should supply only the name and date, and leave it to posterity
to write the epitaph.
Here lies an honest man,
Rear-Admiral Van.
- - - -
Faith, then ye have
Two in one grave,
For in his favor,
Here too lies the Engraver.
Fame itself is but an epitaph; as late, as false, as true. But
they only are the true epitaphs which Old Mortality retouches.
A man might well pray that he may not taboo or curse any portion
of nature by being buried in it. For the most part, the best
man's spirit makes a fearful sprite to haunt his grave, and it is
therefore much to the credit of Little John, the famous follower
of Robin Hood, and reflecting favorably on his character, that
his grave was "long celebrous for the yielding of excellent
whetstones." I confess that I have but little love for such
collections as they have at the Catacombs, Pere la Chaise, Mount
Auburn, and even this Dunstable graveyard.
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