St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-05-28

national life needs no boundaries and
belongs to no people. for it is corpse.
France confers Immortality upon its
great ones during life; England gives
her heroes burial place or memorial
in Westminster Abbey. Why should
not the United States have Valhalla
for her long and lengthening list of i'm
mortals? Would the plotting politician
press his way in here, too, and desecrate
the graves of those who deserve an ever
lasting and national honor?
There are poets of no merit buried
here; and there are men who never
wrote even sonnet at school inferred
in this sanctuary of song. AS Addison
wrote long ago: ''In the political quar-
ter | found there were poets who had no
monuments. and monuments which had
no poets" Godfrey Chaucer, the morn
ing star of English poetry, was the first
poet buried there. He was also the first
to deserve it, although the honor was
not done him because of his poetic
genius. Edmund Spencer came long
after. 1t Was the burial OF the author
of 'The Fairie Queen" that really made
this corner somewhat sacred to the
poets. English men of letters are fond of
poking sly joke at Americans because
OF their SeSquepedalian speech, pompous
rhetoric and general Qualification of the
size of things, even of our very incon-
Sistencies.
Very likely some of our people may
locate and donate and operate instead
of place and give and work, but for
monumental extravaganza of epitaph |
beg 10 refer my readers to the following
lnscriptlonon the tomb of Abraham
Cowley: Near this place lies Abra-
ha m
Virgil OF England, and the delight, or
nament and admiration of his age"
This inscription reminds one of the ex-
trayagant praise showered upon the
newly deceased In an average funeral
sermon-an Grafton usually having for
its object the soothing of the nerves of
the living rather than the helping of
the souls of the dead. No one reads
CoWley now; unfortunately for the
veracity of the eptaph, Pindar and
Horace and Virgil are not yet quite for
gotten. Dryden is one of the few whose
monument bears a modestly becoming
Inscription. 1t merely states that he
was born and that he died. Here it is:
u. Dryden, born 1852, died May 1,1700."
Further on we read another singularly
arrogant inscription, extending even to
the next lite as well as taking in this.
AnloD"oi Dlay tVh ID opohoH VI as
memorable poet of his age, who ex-
changed ''his laurels for crown of
glory in the year 163l''
Had his monument not so stated we
should never have suspected Drayton of
having been a memorable poet, and we
should not have dared to speculate
about the probabilities of crown of
glory in heaven for a poet who lived on
earth in the seventeenth century. One
OF the JrueSt and prettIeSt phrases in
the corner is that by which Ben johnson
is now chiefly remembered: 80 Rare
Ben Johnson" 1t is strange that the
staggering, scholarly and sometimes
brutal Ben, who before his death was
admitted to be tho greatest man of let
tiers IN England, should now be remem-
Dered chiefly by tomblc inscription.
His name has been brought up in
Shakespearian discussions of recent
years, because he wrote a poem to
Shakespeare, which furnishes no newer
argument against the BaconIan author
ship of the plays as advanced by Della
Bacon and my learned friend Ignatius
Donnelly. He refers to the StratforI
man as follows:
s'SOul of the Age,
the applause, the delight, the wonder
OF our stage" Many people will con-
tend that Shakespeare'S clever con-
temporary should know what manner of
man he was better than the higher
critics who follow three centuries and
half after. The inscription on Ben's
monument is brought into ridicule by
the fact that some idiot had Inscribed
upon the tomb of Sir William Davenant
the words: 80, Rare Sir William
Davenant." Looking at the names of
some of the laureates who lie buriej
here, one is not so much surprised at
the appointment of plain John Ru5kin
Shadwell, Davenant and Rowe are
hardly known even to students Of Eng
liah poetry. although they were poets