their country the noblest sacrifice. "They bestowed," he adds,
"their persons and their lives upon the public; and therefore,
as their private recompense, they receive a deathless renown
and the noblest of sepulchres, [Footnote:
While kings, in dusty darkness hid,
Have left a nameless pyramid,
Thy heroes, though the general doom
Hath swept the column from their tomb,
A mightier monument command--
The mountains of their native land!
These, points thy muse, to stranger's eye--
The graves of those that cannot die!
--BYRON.]
not so much that wherein their bones are entombed as in which
their glory is preserved--to be had in everlasting remembrance
on all occasions, whether of speech or action. For to the
illustrious the whole earth is a sepulchre; nor do monumental
inscriptions in their own country alone point it out, but an
unwritten and mental memorial in foreign lands, which, more durable
than any monument, is deeply seated in the breast of everyone.
Imitating, then, these illustrious models--accounting that
happiness is liberty, and that liberty is valor--be not backward
to encounter the perils of war. [Footnote: It was a kindred spirit
that led our own great statesman, Webster, in quoting from this
oration, to ask: "Is it Athens or America? Is Athens or America
the theme of these immortal strains? Was Pericles speaking of his
own country as he saw it or knew it? or was he gazing upon a
bright vision, then two thousand years before him, which we see
in reality as he saw it in prospect?"] For the unfortunate and
hopeless are not those who have most reason to be lavish of their