PART VI.
MISCELLANEOUS ANTIQUITIES FOUND ON THE LINE OF THE WALL.
Most apposite is the remark of Dr. Johnson, that ‘Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings.’ Few things are so well calculated to produce this effect, as the altars and lettered tablets that have been left on our soil by the Romans. When we but glance at them, who is not moved at the reflection, that they were chiselled by hands which for so many centuries have mouldered nerveless in the dust!
Still on its march, unnoticed and unfelt
Moves on our being. We do live and breathe,
And we are gone! The spoiler heeds us not;
We have our spring-time and our rottenness;
And as we fall, another race succeeds
To perish likewise.