Thibodaux minerva. [volume] (Thibodaux, La.) 18??-1858, 1854-11-18
Henry Clay's Home and Grave.


1t was near the close of warm and pleas
ant day, that we rode in carriage from
the hotel door in Lexington to Ashland
We were not prepared to find the building
totally demolished, but all that remained Of
it was brick wall, which had once served
to divide the parlor from the library, and
upon this some half dozen men were at work
with crowbar and pickaxe. leveling it &c
the ground All therefore that remains Of
the old homestead of the statesman is a
pile of bricks and rubbish. We were told
that the present proprietor of the estate, a
son of Henry Clay, is about to erect on the
site of the old dwelling new edifce Of its
exact form and character. This will make
some amends for the work of demolition he
has completed, but it will hardly pardon it
The old house might have been repaired: i,
should not have been destroyed. twas one
of those consecrated spots, those shrines Of
Liberty, to which the pilgrim would off
retire TO revive his hope and strengthen his
love of country.
because of him, who for SO many years
remarkable about Ashland. The estate
partakes of the general character of the
lands in the ne,ghborhood of Lexington
being rich and fruitful. There are many
trees in the immediate locality where the
dwelling stood, and we can scarcely i'm.
agine more rural home than Ashland was
once, for such man as Henry Clay. But
its glory is departed-Henry Clay's home is
razed to the earth. 1t was with mortified
and disappointed spirit we left Ashland, and
directed our way towards the cemetery
which is on the other side of Lexington
from Ashland, but near the closely inha bited
part of the city. 1t is an exceedingly well
selected spot, and contains many handsome
monuments.
Our chief desire, however, was to see the
grave of the Great Commoner" We soon
found it, 1t is marked by no stone or mon.
ument The place of sepulchre however,
is we'll selected Henry Clay lies just
where he ought TON the heart of Ken
lucky The spot is beautiful and quiet, and
che sleeps we'll"
His grave is heaped up in the usual form,
and covered with the green sward. 1t is
contemplated to build his monument on the
spot where he now rests. We own that we
like the simple beauty of his unmarked
grave better than we would monument
1t brought TO our mind the grave OF Sir
Walter Scott, in St. Mary's Isle, in the
ruined Abbey of Dryburgh. SCOTS grave.
like Clay's bears no monumental stone; the
green hilIock alone marks where he rests.
But how quiet and holy that rest doth seem!
+ 1t was growing quite dark when we got
back to our hotel The living crowd
brought together by the attraction of the
81 ~ 10 4
the joke passed on.-Cin. Gazette.
ELIAS WonderfM Preserva-
tion.-A writer in the Boston Recorder, as
an illustration of the Proyidential care
which God sometimes exercises over His
people, relates the following marvellous
incident, and vouches for it as authentic:
Elias Boudinot, founder of the American
Bible Society, was returning in his chaise to
his home late in a dark night, from a court
he had been attending many days. He did
not know that a recent ffeshet had carried
away all the planks from the long bridge
which lay in his accustomed path. There
a bridge there, and reached home safely.
His friends inquired by what road he came.
The usual road,n he replied. aImpos-
sible," said they, "there are no plaaks on
the bridge" He persisted, and they trem-
bling for his veracity or his sanity, went
with him next morning early, to survey
When arrived, they found the very tracks Of
the carriage at either end of the bridge and
on the sIeepers, and the very footprints of
his horse Oh central sleeper. There was
no more to be said-sanity and veracity
were both safe. Some power had presided
over the instinct of that horse, had ordained
the correspondence of those wheels with the
sleepers over which they passed, and kept
the man in ignorance of his danger. Was
that power, fate, or chance? 0 my doubt
ing friend turn from You and listen to
another voice, "Hast thou not known, hast
thou not heard that the everlasting God, the
Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth,
fainteth not, neither is weary :" @3I
If authority for the above is demanded,
reference may be had to the family, parti-
cularly to Mrs Adriana Boudinot, of
Beaverwyck, N. j., a near relative of Judge
Boudinot, from whose mouth she received
the account The same respected lady will
pardon the writer for relating her account
of passag &c in the history of her own family,
illustrating our point.
The EMPRESS OF AUsrRIA.-Mr. Brooks,
of the N. Y. Express, in his agreeable
+" Thoughts Aloud" from Europe, thus
describes meeting which he had with the
youthful Empress Of Austria:
81 had full good look at this little
Kaisseraum of all the Austrians. She will
pass for pretty, if for no other reason than
that she is an empress Her figure is petite,
and she has all the look of school girl, in
the beginning of her teens and not yet free
from the age of "breai and butter" Just a
year age, the emperor met with her at a
little watering place in Upper Austria,
called Ischil, where her mother a Bavarian
Duchess, and cousin of the emperor, had
gone 10 try the baths. The Bavarian. mother
brought two daughters there, to the imperial
market, intending the eldest for the emperor,
if she could get him. The emperor's
mother the Archduchess) gave ball, and
invited the three Bavarians, mother and two
daughters. The emperor, instead Of opening
the ball, as every body expected, with the
elder sister, invited the youngest to dance,
in violation of all etiquette, and all expecta-
ton, whereby a great comlmotion was
created at Ischil, and he then presented his
daHrino ma rtner with honnuet which wa