New-York tribune., 1874-08-27
EYTEUPORI/ING.

We cheerfully admit that there is no reason
why our great and glorious Republic GU. S. AZ
shouldn't have everything ancient and interest
ing and generally desirable possessed by
other dominions-except possibly the reason
that it can't. The venerable, for instance, is
nice thing. Ivy-clad towers twelve CEN
turies old are uncommonly moving. 1t is little
tedious to be always exhuming mastOdOns-
why can we not occasionally unearth big
marble Hercules or lovely Venus with only
one legi Again, why don't we have art
great frescOcs and cartoons, aud wonderful
sweeps of architecture Moreover, why
have MT we Westminster Abbey AS this
question is tearfully put by Chicago editor,
it might be pertinently answered that one
reason is because we have such big fires and
such bad fire departments But this would MT
probably satisfy an editor SO enamOred of
the antique and the impressive. He complains
that our honored dead are scattered from the
Atlantic to the Pacific; that many of our
great ones "lie under unfinished monuments"
and that there is no spot where their dust is
gathered together. To this we answer that
one great merit of many of these monuments is
that they are unfinished, and are likely to re-
main so - for Heaven only knows what
dreadful appearance they would present
il they were completed. Again, is it
not by the blessing Of Divine Providence
that these hdeous posts and pillars and
slabs and statues and sarcOphaguses are
scattered instead of being all collected
in one awful aggregation under one dome
Westminster Abbey, we believe, contains
more bad monuments than good ones, to say
nothing of the mediOcrities and the illustrious
obscure there sepulchred Our Yankee West
minister, even if it were built, might become
receptacle of rubbish and of dust without
dignity.
1t requires no great stretch of Imagination
to suppose an appropriation made by Con-
gress for the erection of Westminster Abbey
in Pennsylvania-ave. There might be pro-
viso, too, that the contractor should make it
appear to be at least twelve hundred years
old, or receive no pay. Stone by stone, brick
by brick, pillar by pillar, it might be made an
exact reproduction of the English shrine.
Then notice might be given, by adver-
tisement, to the heirs, executors, and ad-
ministrators of all our deceased poets. gen.
erals, statesmen, judges, ct al, to bring
their bones to Washington, to be preserved
in the Abbey of ,St. Yankee Doodle forever
and forever. All our sculptOrs-and their
name is Legion-might be set to making
monuments, mural, statuesque, NEUROLOGICAL
Fame crowning Col. Elijah Pogram; the
Muses. weeping the demise Of young Smith
Neptune shedding salt tears for this cele-
brated Commodore, and Hercules lamenting
that renowned Civil Engineer. In the course
of fifty years we might have the whole of
Iempriere's Classical Dictionary or of
Spence's POlymetis upon the walls-and
the whole would be about as interest
ing as the reading of Biographical
Dictionary full of great names and of little
ones-of those who would have been remem-
bered without mention and of those who will
be forgotten, however geographically COM
memorated. 1t would be but mixed har-
yest-the mellow flames jostling the unripe
ones, and the fine old fellows of '76 sharing
their honor with the nObodies of to-day; so
that upon the whole our Pantheon would MT
be half so interesting as Barnum's old Museum,
and not a little like it.
Although we long ago undertook to repeal the
law of natural growth, we are inclined to be-
ieve that it is still in full force.' All that is
valuable remaining to US of the past came
into existence without any prepense affecta-
tions. The Pyramids are nice things in
their way-but we can hardly reproduce
them here. We can never build o
Wsstninstss Abbez. bscauss We can