“Mases de Latude, thirty-two years prisoner in the Bastile, implores good Christians to intercede for him, so that he may once more embrace his poor old father and mother, if they yet live, and die in the open world.”
Surely, nothing but the hallowed air of Mount Vernon could have prevented the Prince of Darkness from bodily carrying off so precious a gem for his cabinet. One side of the great drawing-room was ornamented with a sculptured mantel in Italian marble, presented by Lafayette, the other was covered with cases containing books of high toned selection, while, from the third, its green silk curtain drawn aside, was suspended a portrait of the present family, by Chapman. The figures of the portrait, as large as life, presented a lady of middle age, clad in mourning, surrounded by a group of children advancing into youth. It was well executed, and in the dignified and saddened serenity, in the simple and natural grouping, and the pure and unaffected expression of the countenances, an American in any part of the world, would have at once recognised a family group of the more intellectual and refined of his own country. As we walked through the various rooms, from which the family had withdrawn, we were so overcome with the illusion, the work-basket with its scissors and thread—the half-opened book lying upon the table, the large Bible prominently, not ostentatiously, in its place, the portraits on the walls, the busts on their pedestals,—all causing such a vivid impression of present life and being, that we almost expected to see the towering form of the General entering the doorway, or passing over the green lawn spread between us and that Potomac which we had so often viewed from the same windows. We were at first disappointed at not seeing in some conspicuous place, the sword, which had so often been extended by the hand whose pulses quickened not in the hour of extremest peril, as it marshalled the road of human liberty; but our disappointment turned to admiration, and our hearts beat still higher, as we were referred to, and read this clause in his last testament:
“To each of my four nephews, I bequeath one of the swords of which I may die possessed. These swords are accompanied with the injunction not to unsheath them for the purpose of shedding blood, except it be for self-defence, or in defence of their country and its rights; and in the latter case, to keep them unsheathed, and prefer falling with them in their hands to the relinquishment thereof.”
Passing through the great hall, ornamented with pictures of English hunting scenes, we ascended the oaken stair-case, with its carved and antique balustrade;—we stood at the door—we pressed the handle—the room and the bed where he died were before us. Nothing in the lofty drama of his existence, surpassed the grandeur of that final scene;—the cold which he had taken from exposure, in overseeing some part of his grounds, and which resisted the earlier domestic remedies that were applied, advanced in the course of two short days into that frightful form of the disease of the throat, laryngitis.—It became necessary for him to take to his bed. His valued friend, Dr. Craik, was instantly summoned, and assisted by the best medical skill of the surrounding country, exhausted all the means of his art, but without affording him relief. He patiently submitted, though in great distress, to the various remedies proposed, but it became evident from the deep gloom settling upon the countenances of the medical gentlemen, that the case was hopeless;—advancing insidiously, the disease had fastened itself with deadly certainty. Looking with perfect calmness upon the sobbing group around him, he said—“Grieve not my friends; it is as I anticipated from the first;—the debt which we all owe, is now about to be paid—I am resigned to the event.” Requesting Mrs. Washington to bring him two wills from his escritoire, he directed one to be burnt, and placed the other in her hands, as his last testament, and then gave some final instructions to Mr. Lear, his secretary and relation, as to the adjustment his business affairs. He soon after became greatly distressed, and as, in the paroxysms which became more frequent and violent, Mr. Lear, who was extended on the bed by his side, assisted him to turn, he, with kindness, but with difficulty, articulated, “I fear I give you great trouble, sir,—but—perhaps it is a duty that we all owe one to another—I trust that you may receive the same attention, when you shall require it.”
As the night waned, the fatal symptoms became more imminent—his breath more laboured and suffocating, and his voice soon after failed him. Perceiving his end approaching, he straightened himself to his full length, he folded his own hands in the necessary attitude upon his chest—placing his finger upon the pulse of the left wrist, and thus calmly prepared, and watching his own dissolution, he awaited the summons of his Maker. The last faint hopes of his friends had disappeared;—Mrs. Washington, stupified with grief, sat at the foot of the bed, her eyes fixed steadfastly upon him; Dr. Craik, in deep gloom, stood with his face buried in his hands at the fire,—his faithful black servant, Christopher, the tears uncontrolled trickling down his face, on one side, took the last look of his dying master; while Mr. Lear, in speechless grief, with folded hands, bent over his pillow on the other.
Nought broke the stillness of his last moments, but the suppressed sobs of the affectionate servants collected on the stair-case; the tick of the large clock in the hall, as it measured off, with painful distinctness, the last fleeting moments of his existence, and the low moan of the winter wind, as it swept through the leafless snow-covered trees; the labouring and wearied spirit drew nearer and nearer to its goal; the blood languidly coursed slower and more slowly through its channels—the noble heart stopped—struggled—stopt—fluttered—the right hand slowly slid from the wrist, upon which its finger had been placed—it fell at the side—and the manly effigy of Washington was all that remained, extended upon the death couch.
We left that room, as those who leave a sick room: a suppressed whisper alone escaped us, as, with a sort of instinctive silence and awe, we drew the door slowly and firmly to its place behind us. We again descended the antique stair-case, and emerged upon the lawn, in front of the mansion. Passing through several coppices of trees, we approached the sepulchre, where rest the remains of his earthly semblance. In the open arch of a vault composed of brick, secured and firmly protected by gates of open iron work, were two large sarcophagi of white marble, in one of which, carved in high relief, with the arms of the republic, were deposited the remains of him, “who was first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” A marble slab, set into the brick wall of the exterior, bearing in black letters simply this inscription—
“The remains of
Gen’l George Washington.”
There rested all that was mortal of the man, whose justice—whose virtue—whose patriotism—meet with no parallel in human history. There, within the smoke of his own hearth-stone, mouldered the remains of that towering form, whose spirit, whether in the battle, or in the council-hall, in the fierce dissensions of public discord, or in the quiet relations of social life, shone with the same stern and spotless purity.
The Potomac glittered like silver, between the trees in the noon-day sun at our feet; the soft mild breeze gently moved the leaves upon the tree tops—the chirp of the wren—the drowsy hum of the locust—the quick note of the thrush, as she hopped from twig to twig, were all that showed signs of life,—and those huge sarcophagi lay still—motionless—far, far from voiceless. Oh! my countrymen, never since he left us, hath it so behoved us to listen,—“While our Father’s grave doth utter forth a voice.”