Some of our readers will doubtless remember an allusion in the tale of "The Doom" to an individual who performed the feat of swimming across the James, at the falls above this city. A valuable correspondent, who was the bold swimmer alluded to, writes us as follows:
"I noticed the allusion in the Doom. The writer seems to compare my swim with that of Lord Byron, whereas there can be no comparison between them. Any swimmer 'in the falls' in my days, would have swum the Hellespont, and thought nothing of the matter. I swam from Ludlam's wharf to Warwick, (six miles,) in a hot June sun, against one of the strongest tides ever known in the river. It would have been a feat comparatively easy to swim twenty miles in still water. I would not think much of attempting to swim the British Channel from Dover to Calais."
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
"THE GRAVE OF FORGOTTEN GENIUS."
BY AN UNDERGRADUATE.
| Anxious thought that wished To go, yet whither knew not well to go, Possessed his soul and held it still awhile: He listened and heard from far the voice of fame, Heard and was charmed, and deep and sudden vow Of resolution made to be renowned, And deeper vowed to keep his vow.—Pollock. |
The summer of 18—, was the fourth which I had spent at C—— College, and with it, ended my collegiate life. The scenes, which my long residence there had made sacred to the memory, were now becoming still more sacred as the time of my departure drew near. Every object, which was at all associated with meeting-scenes and parting-adieus, had become a magician's wand,—recalling the absent and the dead—towering hopes, now buried in the tomb, and anguish, which, thus recalled, is but the bliss which the dreamer enjoys, when he wakes and feels himself secure from the precipice, from whose edge a moment before he was plunging into a gulph below. No scene was to me so sacred as the student's grave-yard; for in it, I often mourned over the woes and ills of life, and almost unconsciously wished for a fate like the young men's who slept in its repose. There were then only four graves—three were side by side, having tomb-stones, epitaphed to the memory of those whose ashes reposed beneath them. The fourth stood alone—over it was a rude stone, on which was visible no tribute to him, whose remains were there. His was a destiny which often made me look upon the unlettered stone with the deepest sympathy. One only thing seemed to be known of this grave—one tribute only did time pay to his memory—for to the pilgrim who passed by and hastily inquired "who sleeps there?" naught was ever replied but the simple, yet eloquent elegy, "that is the 'Grave of the Forgotten Genius.'" In this unconscious elegy, there was that which made me look upon it, almost as the grave of a brother.
It was here that I often retired during the last days of my stay at C—— College. Here I could enjoy an uninterrupted revery, and call before me the spirits of the dead and weep o'er the destiny of forgotten genius; yet, even then, I sometimes thought their fate the happiest which could fall to the lot of man. Perhaps they have prayed for the gift of oblivion. Perhaps they have wished not to be remembered. Their last desire may have been,