Whose verse may claim—grave, masculine and strong—
Superior praise to the mere poet’s song;
Who many a noble gift from heaven possessed,
And faith at last, alone worth all the rest.
O man immortal by a double prize,
By fame on earth,—by glory in the skies!
GEORGE WASHINGTON, ob. Dec. 14, 1799, æt. 67.
When, in 1838, the remains of Washington were removed from the old vault into the new, at Mount Vernon, the coffin was placed in a beautiful sarcophagus of white marble, from a quarry in Chester county, Pennsylvania, and prepared in Philadelphia by the gentleman who presented it. The lid is wrought with the arms of the country and the inscription here appended. Independently of other considerations, it is desirable, for the honor of the nation so largely indebted to Washington, that his grave should be something more than an advertising medium for a marble-mason. But the faithful chronicler must take things as he finds them, not always as they should be:—
WASHINGTON.
By the permission of