“The brevity of existence has been much insisted on,” observed Fortyfolios at the conclusion of the service; “and here is an example of the prolongation of life far beyond the usual term, and prolonged under circumstances remarkably rare and interesting. This human antiquity bore all the marks of greatness which were first impressed upon its nature, through the violent changes that shook to ruin the society to which it belonged. He was brave, patriotic, noble, and patient. He could draw hope from the materials of despair, and find comfort in the midst of desolation. Let us not murmur, then, at the small evils among which we exist, when we find such admirable endurance of evils of the greatest magnitude. The love of country is a natural and amiable virtue, but never has it sat so gracefully, and existed with such disinterestedness, as in the character of this ancient Englishman. He loved, not because such love was a common feeling which every object around him might excite; but he loved as if he had calculated what would be the amount of patriotism possessed by his countrymen had they existed; and considering himself as the representative of the dead, endeavoured to exhibit the total of their contributions; and this exhibition seemed the more abundant, as the objects which should have the most readily created it became the least capable of exciting it into action. He was a great man, and may be looked upon as the last production of a great country.”
“As for the men who are vulgarly called great, don’t you see,” observed the doctor, “your kings, your conquerors, and such poor cattle, they shrink into their proper insignificance when compared to the last of the Englishmen. How could they have endured the barren waste and wilderness of ruins for any length of time! They could have found nothing to appreciate in its solitude, they would have left its desolation in disgust. Patriotism here was the most amiable of virtues. It was pure and honest and excellent. It was full of truth and courage, and a power that was invincible. Let us honour this old man: the grave will hold him fast. We shall see nothing of the kind again. Let us then make the most of his memory, for the estimation of such excellence will be always a proof of the existence of a love of that which is best. The self-denials of ascetics, and the mortifications of religious misanthropists, who, shutting themselves up from the sweet influence of social intercourse, hate their fellows and torture themselves; what are these compared with that nobler, purer, better feeling which bound this old man to the grave of his country, and made him find enjoyment and consolation in the recollection of her immortal excellences? Let us honour him, for he is an example of how much honour humanity may attain.”
“I cannot unwillingly join in praise so well deserved,” said Oriel Porphyry; “the extraordinary energy of his heroic nature that made him endure with so cheerful a spirit the evils under which generation after generation sunk into utter hopelessness, is worthy of all the admiration we can confer upon it. We will bury him in the earth he loved so well; and although we raise no monument to glorify his actions, and although to strangers he be indebted for the rites of sepulture, his sleep will not be the less profound, nor his obsequies the less honourable. Perhaps in some future age, when, as he hath prophesied, this ancient nation shall arrive at a degree of prosperity and greatness far beyond any thing it has hitherto attained, the people of the future imagining that this monument has been erected over the mortal remains of some heroic spirit of the early ages, shall throng in crowds to confer on it the homage of their reverence; and the fame, though in error, will do him justice, and posterity, though ignorant, will rightly apply their admiration.”
“Grieve not, sweet Lilya!” exclaimed Zabra, as he was endeavouring to console the afflicted mourner; “he for whom you mourn mourns not; why, therefore, should you be afflicted? His spirit is at peace with the world; he treads no more among the ruins and weeds of this deserted land; his home is where nature enjoys an unfading youth; where beauty breathes from an unclouded atmosphere, and love dwells around him like a perpetual blessing. Grieve not for the loss of the goodness which was enshrined in his nature, it has gone to join the First Great Cause of all good from which its goodness was derived. You see the wild flowers that are scattered at our feet; they gather from the air and the soil their fragrance and their loveliness, and these qualities they give back to the air and the soil, when the freshness of their leaves is dried up, and the soft hues in which we so much delight fade from their blossoms. Whatever exists, exists in a state of continual giving and receiving. It gains only to lose when what it has acquired can no longer be rendered profitable to its owner. As the rivers run into the sea, glides all humanity into the boundless ocean of the eternal; yet, fast as they empty themselves as rapidly they flow from their sources, just as the waters of life rush into the gulf of death, and though swallowed up with inconceivable velocity, rise from their innumerable springs in greater abundance. Grieve not, then, for grief is of no utility to either the living or the dead. Consider yourself: in you are deposited the materials of much happiness for yourself and others; endeavour to apply them to the most advantage. Some fond youth may soon be looking on your eyes, as gazes the devotee on the innermost sanctuary of his temple. In you he will concentrate all his ideas of what is most admirable; to you he will turn his thoughts; for you he will breathe his aspirations; his dreams he will gladden with your smiles; his hopes he will make brilliant in the lustre of your gaze. Are such things unworthy of your contemplation? Leave off these regrets; quit this senseless clay which answers not to your sympathy. Strive to become all, when living, he would have wished you to be. Virtue and truth and wisdom invite you to partake of their enjoyments, and if you attend to the better business of life, under their instructive auspices, you may be assured of becoming possessed of such happiness as it is felicitous even to imagine.”
Lilya raised her eyes streaming with tears to the handsome countenance of the speaker, and her face was lit up with an expression that for the time obliterated all traces of sorrow. At this moment the body was carefully deposited in the grave, over which the seamen fired a volley of musketry, after which he was covered with the soil, and the party returned to their tents. Here, immediately on Zabra’s arrival, he proceeded to his harp, and after a few chords full of melancholy and tender feeling, sang the following lines:—
“The last of his race now lies low,
Lies low in the soil that gave bliss to his eyes,
Though his country no joy could bestow,
For in deserts he lived and ’mid ruin he dies;
For him no dull trappings of woe,
No dark hirelings of grief round his sepulchre rise,
And he leaves not a friend or a foe,
His merits to praise or his faults to despise.
“The last of his race to his rest,
To his rest in the grave hath gone silently down;
With his sword girded on o’er his vest,
And arrayed as in life from the foot to the crown.
But say not his tomb is unblest,
Or the name he hath left be unknown to renown,
For the wild flow’r shall bloom o’er his breast,
And his fame shall be echoed through village and town.
“Though strangers his corse in the grave,
In the grave they have chosen with honour shall place,
Though the earth take the life which it gave,
And the tooth of the worm shall the mortal efface,
There shall dwell neither tyrant or slave,
There shall live not a people so lost in disgrace,
Who shall know not the land of the brave,
And respect not the bones of the Last of his Race.”
At the close of the song, Zabra felt a hand placed lightly on his shoulder, and, turning round, beheld Lilya gazing on him with a look so full of pleasure, that he felt almost inclined to doubt it was the same creature who a short time since was so overpowered with affliction. “I will go with you,” said the timid girl, as a slight blush appeared on either cheek; “I will go with you to your own country—if—that is—I should like to go with you if you will take me.”
The same evening they were all on board the Albatross, which immediately set sail, and retraced her way through the river into the wide ocean.