AND ITS ALBUM.

107

It was with a saddened heart and a sober mind that I turned away from the tomb of Byron. It is something to have trodden upon his dust: after the many else tedious hours that his wanderings had beguiled, to have traced him to his last home. As I walked from the church, many thoughts of regret that such talents should have so grovelled in the dust passed through my mind, and I shuddered at the recollection of how great a responsibility their possessor incurred.

Let him who is ambitious of literary fame pause awhile and reflect here; the vaticinations of a prophet could not speak to him a louder warning.

THE ALBUM

Commences with the following inscription from the pen of Dr. Bowring, by whom the book was sent to Hucknall, for the purpose to which it is applied.

TO THE

IMMORTAL AND ILLUSTRIOUS FAME

OF

LORD BYRON,

THE FIRST POET OF THE AGE IN WHICH HE LIVED,

THESE TRIBUTES,

WEAK AND UNWORTHY OF HIM, BUT

IN THEMSELVES SINCERE,

ARE INSCRIBED

WITH THE DEEPEST REVERENCE.

JULY, 1825.

Ar this period no monument-not even so simple a slab as records the death of the humblest villager in the neighbourhoodhad been erected to mark the spot in which all that is mortal of the greatest man of our day reposes-and he has been buried more than twelve months.

JULY, 1825.

So should it be-let o'er this grave
No monumental banners wave;
Let no word speak-no trophy tell
Aught that may break the charming spell
By which, as on this sacred ground
He kneels, the pilgrim's heart is bound.

A still, resistless influence,

Unseen, but felt, binds up the sense;
While every whisper seems to breathe
Of the mighty dead who rests beneath.
-And though the master-hand is cold,
And though the lyre it once controlled
Rests mute in death;-yet from the gloom
Which dwells about this holy tomb,