musicians, warriors, and poets slept side by side around me; some beneath
the gorgeous monument, and some beneath the simple headstone. But the
political intrigue, the dream of science, the historical research, the
ravishing harmony of sound, the tried courage, the inspiration of the
lyre--where are they? With the living, and not with the dead! The right
hand has lost its cunning in the grave; but the soul, whose high volitions
it obeyed, still lives to reproduce itself in ages yet to come.

Among these graves of genius I observed here and there a splendid
monument, which had been raised by the pride of family over the dust of
men who could lay no claim either to the gratitude or remembrances of
posterity. Their presence seemed like an intrusion into the sanctuary of
genius. What had wealth to do there? Why should it crowd the dust of the
great? That was no thoroughfare of business--no mart of gain! There were
no costly banquets there; no silken garments, nor gaudy liveries, nor
obsequious attendants!....

I continued my walk through the numerous winding paths, as chance or
curiosity directed me. Now I was lost in a little green hollow, overhung
with thick-leaved shrubbery, and then came out upon an elevation, from
which, through an opening in the trees, the eye caught glimpses of the
city, and the little esplanade, at the foot of the hill, where the poor
lie buried. There poverty hires its grave, and takes but a short lease of
the narrow house. At the end of a few months, or at most of a few years,
the tenant is dislodged to give place to another, and he in turn to a
third. "Who," says Sir Thomas Browne, "knows the fate of his bones, or how
often he is to be buried? Who hath the oracle of his ashes, or whither
they are to be scattered?"

Yet, even in that neglected corner, the hand of affection had been busy in