to living greatness? to show it, even in the moment of its proudest exaltation, the neglect and dishonor to which it must 320 soon arrive; how soon that crown which encircles its brow must pass away, and it must lie down in the dust and disgraces of the tomb, and be trampled upon by the feet of the meanest of the multitude. For, strange to tell, even the grave is here no longer a sanctuary. There is a shocking levity in 325 some natures, which leads them to sport with awful and hallowed things; and there are base minds, which delight to revenge on the illustrious dead the abject homage and grovelling servility which they pay to the living. The coffin of Edward the Confessor has been broken open, and his remains despoiled of their funereal ornaments; the sceptre has been stolen from the hand of the imperious Elizabeth, and the effigy of Henry the Fifth lies headless. Not a royal monument but bears some proof how false and fugitive is the homage of mankind. Some are plundered, some mutilated; some covered with ribaldry and insult,—all more or less outraged and dishonored! The last beams of day were now faintly streaming through the painted windows in the high vaults above me; the lower parts of the abbey were already wrapped in the obscurity of twilight. The chapel and aisles grew darker and darker. The effigies of the kings faded into shadows; the marble figures of the monuments assumed strange shapes in the uncertain light; the evening breeze crept through the aisles like the cold breath of the grave; and even the distant footfall of a verger, traversing the Poets' Corner, had something strange and dreary in its sound. I slowly retraced my morning's walk, and as I passed out at the portal of the cloisters, the door, closing with a jarring noise behind me, filled the whole building with echoes. I endeavored to form some arrangement in my mind of the objects I had been contemplating, but found they were already 333. Henry the Fifth, King of England from 1413 to 1422. 330 335 340 345 350 How idle Time is ever 1 fallen into indistinctness and confusion. Names, inscriptions, trophies, had all become confounded in my recollection, though I had scarcely taken my foot from off the threshold. What, 855 thought I, is this vast assemblage of sepulchres but a treasury of humiliation, a huge pile of reiterated homilies on the emptiness of renown and the certainty of oblivion! It is, indeed, the empire of Death, his great shadowy palace, where he sits in state, mocking at the relics of human glory, and spreading 300 dust and forgetfulness on the monuments of princes. a boast, after all, is the immortality of a name ! silently turning over his pages; we are too much engrossed by the story of the present to think of the characters and anecdotes that gave interest to the past; and each age is a volume thrown 365 aside to be speedily forgotten. The idol of to-day pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection; and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of to-morrow. "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." 370 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 375 of an embalmment? The remains of Alexander the Great have 359. The empire of Death. What is personification? 369. Sir Thomas Browne, M. D., was a merchant's son, born in London in 1605; was knighted by Charles II. in 1671; died in 1682. The Religio Medici (The Religion of a Physician) was his first and most remarkable work. Dr. Johnson says of him, "There is scarce any kind of knowledge, profane or sacred, abstruse or elegant, which he does not appear to have cultivated with success." 374. Epitaph (Gr: ¿πí, upon; тápos, tomb), an inscription on a monument in honor or memory of the dead. 376. Alexander the Great. He was the son of Philip of Macedon; conquered Greece, and finally made himself master of the known world: he died B. C. 324. A stone coffin in the British Museum, found at Alexandria, was fancied by Dr. Clark, the traveller, to be the identical sarcophagus that once contained the body of Alexander. been scattered to the winds, 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." 380 What, then, is to insure 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 385 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 foxglove hang its blossoms about the nameless urn, as if in mockery of the dead. Thus man passes away; his name perishes from record 390 and recollection; his history is as a tale that is told, and his very monument becomes a ruin! 377. Sarcophagus (Gr. σаркopáyos, from σápέ, sarx, flesh, and payeîv, phagein, to eat; from a notion that the stone consumed in a few weeks the flesh of bodies deposited in it), a stone coffin or tomb. manner. 378. Mummies. A dead body embalmed and dried after the Egyptian One of the simplest processes was drying by the use of salt or natron, and wrapping in coarse cloth. The bodies of the rich underwent the most complicated operations; perfumes were put into the body, it was covered with natron and steeped in it for seventy days; after this it was washed, steeped in balsam, and wrapped up in linen bandages, sometimes to the number of twenty thicknesses. Various ornaments were placed above the bandages, particularly about the head. Mummies were formerly much used in medicine on account of the balsam they contain. Hence "avarice now consumeth " the mummies which the conquerors of Egypt or "time hath spared." The bodies of great kings may enrich the maker of patent medicine! 379. Cambyses, King of Persia, conquered Egypt 525 B. c. 380. Mizraim. The first mortal king of Mizraim, "the double land," is said to have been Menes. He inherited Upper Egypt, and made himself master of Lower Egypt. Menes may be considered the founder of the empire. The word Mizraim here seems to mean the oldest kings or nobles of Egypt. See Genesis, x. 6. Pharaoh. The title of Pharaoh was like that of Czar or Sultan, and given to a series of different dynasties in Egypt. 387. Garish, glaring, staring. SUGGESTIONS OF TOPICS OF INQUIRY. Where is Westminster Abbey ? How is the word minster used? Who was the founder of the abbey? Edward the Confessor? When did the abbey lose its conventual character? Why? At what season of the year did Irving visit the abbey ? Is there any fact or description in the sketch that shows the age of the building? What were the author's thoughts as he passed from the cloisters into the abbey? Where do visitors linger longest? Why? What epitaph does Irving notice? What criticism does he make on it? What does he think of Mrs. Nightingale's monument? 66 Beating against the very walls of the sepulchre." What is the sepul chre? Why so called? Describe the walls and roof of Henry the Seventh's chapel. Where is Henry the Seventh's tomb? Define mausoleum. "Sure signs of solitariness and desertion." What are the signs? Why are they signs of solitariness and desertion? Does Irving favor Mary or Elizabeth in what he says? Give a reason for your answer. Commit to memory the description of the music of the organ. Who was Edward the Confessor? "It was literally but a step from the throne to the sepulchre." Explain. What lesson do these "incongruous mementos" teach? What time of the day was it when Irving left the abbey ? "It is indeed the empire of Death." What is the empire of Death? "Columns, arches, pyramids, — what are they but heaps of sand, and their epitaphs but characters written in the dust ?" Explain with special reference to the italicized words. Make short, pointed quotations from this sketch. Give the substance of the last paragraph in fresh words. What is the general character of this sketch? Description? Reason for your answer? IN the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail, and implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small market-town or rural port, which by.some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly known by the name of Tarry Town. This name was given, we are told, in former days, by the good housewives of the adjacent country, from the inveterate propensity of their husbands to 16 linger about the village tavern on market-days. Be that as it Castle of Indolence. A celebrated poem, published in 1748, by James Thomson, who wrote also The Seasons. Born in 1700; died 1748. 3. Tappan Zee. This is ten miles long and four wide. (Zee sea.) 5. St. Nicholas. The original St. Nicholas was bishop of Myra in Lycia. On a voyage to Palestine, it is said, a sailor was drowned, and St. Nicholas restored him to life. A dangerous storm occurred, and the sailors besought him to save them; he prayed, and the storm ceased. He is identified with the Dutch Santa Claus, and is the patron saint of children, sailors, travellers, and merchants, also of the Russian nation. St. Nicholas is very often invoked and alluded to in Irving's humorous History of New York (see Book II. Chapters 2 and 5; Book VI. Chapters 4, 8, and 9). 8. Tarrytown is twenty-seven miles from New York. 5 |