| "We carved not a line, we raised not a stone, But we left him alone with his glory." |
There are few names which can justly be relied upon, thus to speak the epitaphs of those who bore them. Among those few, doubtless, is the name of KOSCIUSKO. History, and the halo thrown around that name by Campbell, will ensure it a place among the "household words" of Poland and America, and of every people who shall speak the language or breathe the spirit of either.
| "Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell, And Freedom shrieked, as KOSCIUSKO fell!" |
To be mentioned thus, and so deservedly—is to be embalmed in Light, and set conspicuously on high in the Temple of Fame.
A similar inscription is upon the tomb of Spurzheim, in the cemetery of Mount Auburn, near Boston. To me, this seems to be taking too high a ground for him: though you, who are a phrenologist confirmed, may not think so. Possibly, you are right. Contemporary celebrity is no measure of posthumous fame. PARADISE LOST was almost unknown till near half a century after its author's death: and he was contemptuously designated as "One Milton," by a man then conspicuous, but whose very name (Whitelocke) it has at this moment actually cost me an effort to recollect. So, possibly, Spurzheim's renown may freshen with time; and a discerning posterity, honoring him above Napoleon, and even above Kosciusko, may apply the just saying of a great—that is a voluminous—poet:
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"The warrior's name, Though pealed and chimed on all the tongues of Fame, With far less rapture fills the generous mind, Than his, who fashions and improves mankind." |
Good night.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.