Caxtoniana Volume . 2 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1864 Excerpt: ... forlorn fragment of what he once was, and catalogued alphabetically in a Biographical Dictionary. Caxloniana. II. H Let us suppose some youthful poet whose heart is now beating loud with 'the immense desire of praise, ' to whom his guardian angel lifts the veil of Futurity, and saith, "Thy name shall be preserved from oblivion. Lo its place in yon compendium of embalmed celebrities, which scholars shall compile five centuries after thy decease. Read and exult " The poet (his name be Jones) reads as follows under the letter J: --"jones, David, a British author in the reign of Victoria I. Wrote many poems much esteemed by his contemporaries, some few fragments of which have been collected in the recent 'Anthology' of his learned and ingenious countryman, Professor Morgan Apreece; and, though characterised by the faults prevalent in his period, are not without elegance and fancy. Died at Caermarthen A. D. 1892." Such would be a very honourable mention--more than is said in a Biographical Dictionary of many a bard, famous in his day; and yet what poet would not as willingly be left calm in 'God's Acre, ' without any mention at all? Saith Sir Thomas Brown, in his quaint sublimity of style, "To be read by bare inscriptions, like many in Griiter--to hope for eternity by enigmatical epithets or first letters of our names--to be studied by antiquarians who we were, and have new names given us, like many of the mummies, --are cold consolation unto the students of perpetuity, even by everlasting languages." Yet, alas how few of us can hope for the perpetuity even of an inscription "like those in Griiter " Nor is this all; out of those few to whom universal assent and favouring circumstance have secured high 'UrnBurial.' place in ...