So there the soul, released from human strife, Its lights and shades, its sunshine and its showers; Oft may the spirits of the dead descend To watch the silent slumbers of a friend; There may these gentle guests delight to dwell, Oh thou! with whom my heart was wont to share From Reason's dawn each pleasure and each care; With whom, alas! I fondly hoped to know If thy blest nature now unites above An angel's pity with a brother's love, Still o'er my life preserve thy mild controul, Grant me thy peace and purity of mind, Devout yet cheerful, active yet resigned; Grant me, like thee, whose heart knew no disguise, To meet the changes Time and Chance present, When thy last breath, ere Nature sunk to rest, Hail, MEMORY, hail! in thy exhaustless mine From age to age unnumbered treasures shine! Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey, And Place and Time are subject to thy sway! Thy pleasures most we feel, when most alone; If but a fleeting cloud obscure the sky; If but a beam of sober Reason play, And gild those pure and perfect realms of rest, NOTES ON THE FIRST PART. P. 12, line 13. Up springs, at every step, to claim a tear, I CAME to the place of my birth, and cried, “The friends of my Youth, where are they?"-And an echo answered, "Where are they?" From an Arabic MS. P. 16, 1. 1. Awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise! When a traveller, who was surveying the ruins of Rome, expressed a desire to possess some relic of its antient grandeur, Poussin, who attended him, stooped down, and, gathering up a handful of earth shining with small grains of porphyry, "Take this home,” said he, for your cabinet; and say boldly, Questa è Roma Antica." 66 P. 17, 1. 8. The church-yard yews round which his fathers sleep; Every man, like Gulliver in Lilliput, is fastened to some spot of earth, by the thousand small threads which habit and association are continually stealing over him. Of these, perhaps, one of the strongest is here alluded to. When the Canadian Indians were once solicited to emigrate, "What!" they replied, "shall we say to the bones of our fathers, Arise, and go with us into a foreign land?" P. 17, 1. 15. So, when he breathed his firm yet fond adieu, See Cook's first voyage, book i. chap. 16. Another very affecting instance of local attachment is related of his fellow-countryman Potaveri, who came to Europe with M. de Bougainville. See LES JARDINS, chant. ii. P. 18, 1. 3. So Scotia's Queen, &c. Elle se leve sur son lict, et se met à contempler la France encore, et tant qu'elle peut. P. 18, 1. 11. BRANTÔME. Thus kindred objects kindred thoughts inspire. To an accidental association may be ascribed some of the noblest efforts of human genius. The Historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire first conceived his design among the ruins of the Capitol; and to the tones of a Welsh harp are we indebted for the Bard of Gray. P. 18, 1. 15. Hence home-felt pleasure, &c. Who can sufficiently admire the affectionate attachment of Plutarch, who thus concludes his enumeration of the advantages of a great city to men of letters? "As to myself, I live in a little town; and I choose to live there, lest it should become still less." Vit. Dem. |