The Youth of Parnassus, and Other Stories (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1895 edition. Excerpt: ...now and then. The old brasses, dating from Gothic times, bore inscriptions in rhyming Latin, that Rutherford read and translated to his companion; there were monuments of a later time, adorned with urns, cherubs, and garlands--old trappings of death that made death itself seem almost quaint and charming. But in the seventeenth century the tranquil records of the scholars' lives were disturbed by echoes of old war and exile. "Reader, look to thy feet Honest and Loyal men are sleeping under Thee," one inscription ran; and the name of more than one was recorded "who, when Loyalty and the Church fainted, lay down and Died." Other monuments were put up to the memory of young men who had died at College. Well-born and modest, the old Latin described them, and dead, centuries ago, in the flower of their fruitless years. "Vivere dulce fuit " one of them had complained, as four hundred years before, in florid Latin, he bade farewell to youth and hope. Of another it was quaintly said, " Talis erat vita, qualis stylus, elegans et pura"; while another undergraduate's virtues were recorded in verses ending with the line, "Expertus praedico, tutor eram." Then there was an inscription in English verse, from some Cavalier poet, Rutherford thought, "Him while fresh and fragrant Time Cherisht in his golden prime; Ere Hebe's hand had overlaid His smooth cheeks with downy shade, The rush of Death's unruly wave Swept him off into his grave. Eyes are vocall, teares have tongues, And there be words not made with lungs; Sententious showres: Oh let them fall I Their cadence is rhetoricall." Another of the same date recorded the deeds of the young scholar-soldiers "who, at the news of Battle, ...