Let us note first, then, that travel is a study of history at the spot
where the event took place. The history of a nation is a record of
its great men. You tell a faithful story of Columbus, John Cabot,
and Henry Hudson; of Winthrop, John Smith, and Melendez; of
General Wolfe, General Washington, Patrick Henry, and Franklin;
of Jefferson, Adams, Jackson, and Webster; of Abraham Lincoln,
Wendell Phillips, John Brown, and General Grant; of John Sherman,
Grover Cleveland, and William McKinley, and you an up-to-date
history of the young American Republic, acknowledged by every
country to have the greatest future of all nations. So, if one reads
with understanding the inscriptions on the monuments of Gough,
O'Connell, and Parnell, he will get the story of the struggles of the
Irish. Enter London Tower, "the most historical spot in England,"
and recount the bloody tragedies of the English people since the
time of William the Conqueror, 1066 A.D. Here we have a "series
of equestrian figures in full equipment, as well as many figures on
foot, affording a faithful picture, in approximate chronological
order, of English war-array from the time of Edward I, 1272, down
to that of James II, 1688." In glass cases, and in forms of trophies
on the walls, we find arms and armor of the old Romans, of the
early Greeks, and Britons, and of the Anglo-Saxons. Maces and
axes, long and cross bows and leaden missile weapons and shields,
highly adorned with metal figures, all tend to make more vivid the
word-pictures of the historian." Of the small burial-ground in this
Tower, Macaulay writes: "In truth there is no sadder spot on earth
than this little cemetery. Death is there associated, not, as in
Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's, with genius and virtue, with
public veneration, and with imperishable renown; not, as in our
humblest churches and church-yards, with every thing that is most