BY A VIRGINIAN.
Pittsfield, Mass., July 26th, 1834.
One means by which Prussian tyranny sought to break down the spirit and health of Baron Trenck, during his long and rigorous imprisonment at Magdeburg, was to have him roused by a sentinel, every fifteen minutes of his sleeping hours. You can form a lively conception of the efficacy of the plan, if you have ever been compelled by exhausted nature to woo her "sweet restorer" in a stage-coach, over a very uneven road: but what think you of dozing it outside, on the driver's seat? Instead of two this morning, the waiter called me at one; when I had not slept a single wink—("sleepless myself, to give my readers sleep.") Sickened by the motion of the close and crowded coach, I presently mounted beside the driver; where drowsiness soon overcame me. So, tying one arm with my handkerchief to the iron on the stage roof, I took, for about two hours, such slumber as was permitted by the heavings of our vehicle, on a hilly road: such slumber, as one might enjoy while tossed in a blanket, or "upon the high and giddy mast," rocking his brains, "in cradle of the rude imperious surge." On fully awaking, half an hour before sunrise, I found we were ascending a mountain (part of the Green Mountain,) by a gentle slope of three or four degrees, continuing for six miles. The scenery, (wildly picturesque in itself,) bursting thus suddenly upon the view, was particularly striking. Indeed, no day of my tour has presented a greater number of boldly beautiful landscapes. That I never try to spread these beauties upon my page, you must ascribe to the fear that they would but 'evanish' in the endeavor, and by no means to any profane contempt—unpardonable, you know according to Dr. Beattie, for
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————"the boundless store Of charms which Nature to her votary yields; The warbling woodland, the resounding shore, The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields; All that the genial ray of morning gilds, And all that echoes to the song of even; All that the mountains sheltering bosom shields, And all the dread magnificence of Heaven"— |
I most devoutly worship them all. But humbler themes befit and demand my pen.
It is a New England custom, to bury all the dead of a township, or of a certain subdivision of it, in a common grave yard; usually, not within any village, and apart from any church. This yard is enclosed with a wall; and every grave is marked by a stone (commonly hewn marble,) with a neat and simple inscription of name and years, supplying "the place of fame and elegy." By a sort of tacit consent, each family is allowed to cluster its dead together in a separate portion of the ground; sometimes in a capacious vault, marked with the family name. The curious may at any time find an hour's amusement—aside from the more serious thoughts proper to the place—in reading, on the tombstones, the surnames common and peculiar to New England, and the Christian names—mostly scriptural—betokening the original and enduring sway of Puritanism. A southerner naturally wonders why the grave yards are without the villages. To an inquiry of mine into the reason, a 'cute female (evidently far wiser than her husband, who was also in company,) answered, that it was "to accommodate those who live at a distance." How it did this—or how, if the distant on one side were accommodated, those on the other were not equally incommoded—my sage instructress did not expound. The village itself (at least its ordinary nucleus, the meeting-house) is usually central to the town, for the equal convenience of all. It seems more probable that health, and the readier command of space, influence the location of burying grounds.
One of the objects that have struck me most pleasingly, is the Liberty Pole, in almost every village. Its use is to hoist a flag upon, on the Fourth of July, and other festal days. It figures exquisitely in "McFingal"—that best poem, of its length, that America has produced; so often quoted for Hudibras, and so inadequately honored, not only in the south, but here, in its native north. Do take down the book, or, if you have it not, go straight and buy it; turn to the second or third canto—I forget which—and be grave if you can, while you read how the Tory hero "fierce sallied forth" attended by
| "His desperate clan of tory friends: When sudden met his angry eye A pole ascending thro' the sky:—" |
the ceremonies of its rearing and consecration; the attack, not wordy alone, of the hero upon it; his inglorious discomfiture; his wadling flight,
| ("With legs and arms he worked his course, Like rider that outgoes his horse;") |