FRANKFORT.
This celebrated city has changed its nature, but not its name—the latter being now more appropriate than ever. It is a free-fort, that is, it is free from fort or citadel—rampart or fosse—glacis or sallyport—cannon or mortar—shot or shells! All these have been converted into much better things—gardens, shrubberies, and promenades. Frankfort, I apprehend, has more of nominal freedom than real liberty. The protection of the German potentates is stronger, no doubt, than her ancient walls; but she is as much under the surveillance and control of these “high mightinesses,” as ever she was under that of her military commandants, when a first rate fortress. Be that as it may, Frankfort is now a great emporium or re-union of commerce and carriages—of Jews and of Gentiles—of bankers and of brokers—of lenders and of venders—of consuls and of caléches—of voitures and of retours—of envoyés and employés—in fine, it is a large “normal school” for studying the first lines of diplomacy, trickery, traffic, and stock-jobbery.
The old and the new portions of the city present a curious contrast—youth and beauty united to age and ugliness!
One of the great lions of Frankfort is the cemetery, a few miles out of town. It is a huge “painted sepulchre,” marble without, and mummy within. This “city of the dead,” is not much smaller than its neighbour of the living. True, the mansions are on a smaller scale, and the chambers are low, dark, and unventilated; yet their inhabitants—
“Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,”
shew no symptoms of discontent, feuds, or family quarrels. They sleep without dreams, unagitated by the habitual passions which invade the bosoms of those whom they have left in the busy city on the banks of the Main. If the rage for cemetrical building goes on at the present rate of impulse, a time must come, when the cities of the dead will equal, both in number and extent, those of the living—and necessity will then compel the latter to have recourse to the ancient mode of sepulture—incineration. A small urn, instead of a costly tomb, will then hold the ashes of our friends and ourselves, without any encroachment on the soil that supplies us with food, fuel, and raiment. And, after all, this seems a less revolting process of preserving some frail memorial of those we loved and honoured, than that of committing them to the earth, there to “lie in cold obstruction, and to rot,” the prey of worms, and all crawling things!
I believe there are few people, of reflective minds, who can wander round the splendid cemetery or lonely churchyard, perusing the brief memoirs of the silent inhabitants below, without feeling some of those sentiments and emotions, which Hervey cloathed in language. These records of the dead, short as they are, will be found, each, to contain at least two facts or truths—the birth and death of the individual. I wish as much could be always said for the lengthy biographies of the living! These authentic documents—these “bills of mortality”—teach us one important truth, viz.—that life is a loan, and not a gift, granted to a piece of clay, without interest indeed, but with the power of resumption at the pleasure of the lender, with or without notice. Death, again, is nothing more than the payment of a debt—the surrender of a policy. Has man any just cause to murmur at the shortness or uncertainty of life, because the vital spark animates, without solicitation, his atom of earth—sparkles for a few moments—is extinguished by the same invisible hand—and is reduced again to dust? If this be all, if the brief existence of man be “rounded by a sleep,” he has little cause to be proud of the intelligence which distinguishes him from the inferior animals. He alone, of all created beings, knows that he must die—a bitter thought at all times—and cruelly bestowed, if death be annihilation! As we see no proofs of injustice in the other works of the Creator, it is fair to presume that there is none here, and that the fore-knowledge of death in this world is indicative of life in another.
If an inhabitant of another planet were to visit our cemeteries, graveyards and churches, perusing the necrological literature of those localities, he would soon come to the conclusion that this our little Globe was a perfect Paradise, inhabited by the most amiable of all God’s finite creatures. Every stone would present him authentic proofs that the whole community consisted of affectionate fathers, loving husbands, virtuous wives, indulgent parents, dutiful children, and sincere friends! What would be his astonishment when, on mixing in the busy haunts of men, he found them everywhere engaged in public wars or private quarrels—in litigations, persecutions, robberies, and assassinations—torn with all the vile passions of envy, hatred, malice, jealousy, and malevolence—distorting the good actions of their neighbours, and exaggerating their failings—violating the laws of Nature, and evading the laws of man—in fine, exhibiting a picture the very reverse of that which he found delineated on the tablets of the departed!
In this perplexity, he would fly back to his native planet, and report that the inhabitants of Terra were a race of beings inexplicable in their character—the dead all angels—the living all devils! And yet nothing would be more erroneous than such a report. The haunts of the living and the habitats of the dead—the city and the cemetery—the cheerful village and the country church-yard, being found to contain the same relative proportion of good and evil spirits. The reason of the discrepancy above alluded to, has been appreciated in all ages—“de mortuis nil nisi bonum.” The shroud is our last and kindest mantle. Its texture is so close as to conceal all our vices—but at the same time so transparent as to reveal all our virtues. It is not then on tombstones that we are to seek for truth!