burying-grounds, brings a smile which borders close upon a tear. The very
spelling and lettering in these primitive inscriptions seem moss-grown
with age, and tell of generations passed away, bearing their manners and
customs before them, as Mary Stuart bears her head on the charger in the
Abbotsford picture. Here on one crumbling stone we read of a matron who
hated strife with a capital "S" and loved peace with a little "p." Here we
read the touching little life-history of the young wife of John Page, who
"blest her said Husband with a sonn and a Daughter and departed this life,
the twelfth day of November, Anno Dom 1702, and in the 20th yeare of her
age."
The inscriptions on the oldest tombstones are undecipherable. The
bluestone slab under the ruined arch at Jamestown clasped by the roots of
the sycamore was so broken and defaced even when Lossing visited it that
nothing remained but the shadowy date, 1608. But in the earliest
inscriptions that survive, we are struck by the virile and nervous
English. It smacks of "great Eliza's golden day." A fragment of one runs:
"O Death! all-eloquent, you only prove
What dust we dote on when 't is man we love."
But finest of all is the noble dirge, sung over Bacon's lifeless body by
some one whose name will never now be surely known, since he disguised his
identity, prompted by a wise dread of Berkeley's malignant revenge, and
states that after Bacon's death "he was bemoaned in these following lines,
drawn by the man that waited upon his person as it is said, and who
attended his corpse to their burial place." Whoever the writer was, and a
high authority designates him as a man named Cotton, dweller at Acquia
Creek, it is very sure that no serving-man composed these lines, which are
like an echo of the age that gave us Lycidas:
"Who is't must plead our cause? Nor trump nor drum
Nor deputations; these, alas! are dumb;
And can not speak. Our arms, though ne'er so strong,
Will want the aid of his commanding tongue.
"Here let him rest; while we this truth report
He's gone from hence unto a higher court
To plead his cause, where he by this doth know,
Whether to Cæsar he was friend or foe."
These closing words may well form the epitaph written over the Colonial
Cavalier. He is gone from hence unto a higher court--gone from this world
forever. His open-handed hospitality, his reckless profusion, his chivalry
to women, his quick-tempered, sword-thrusting honor, are as obsolete as
his lace ruffles, his doublet and jerkin, his buckles and jewels and
feathers. We are fallen on a prosaic age, and it is only in our dreams of
the past that we conjure up, like a gay decoration against the neutral
background of modern life, the figure of "The Colonial Cavalier."
Appendix
List of Authorities
Alden's Collection of American Epitaphs and Inscriptions
Alsop's Character of the Province of Maryland
Anburey's Travels through the Interior Parts of America
Bancroft's History of the United States
Beverley's History and Present State of Virginia
Bozman's History of Maryland
Browne's Maryland
Buck's Old Plate
Burwell Papers, The
Byrd's Westover Manuscripts
Campbell's History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia
Chastellux's Travels in North America
Cooke's Virginia
Doyle's English Colonies in America
Fisher's The Colonial Era
Hammond's Leah and Rachel; or, The Two Fruitful Sisters, Virginia and
Maryland
Hamor's True Discourse of the Present Estate of Virginia
Hening's Virginia Statutes at Large
Hildreth's History of the United States
Howe's Historical Collections of Virginia
Howell's State Trials
Irving's Life of Washington
Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia
Jefferson, Thomas, Life and Letters of
Jones' True Relation of the Present State of Virginia
Lee, Richard Henry, Life and Letters of
Lossing's Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution
McMaster's History of the People of the United States
Madison, Mrs. Dolly, Life and Letters of
Maryland Archives
Magazine of American History
Meade's Old Churches, Ministers, and Families of Virginia
Moore's History of North Carolina
Purchas: His Pilgrimes
Ramsay's History of South Carolina
Ridgely's Annals of Annapolis
Robin, Abbé, New Travels through North America
Rowland's Life of George Mason
Scharf's Chronicles of Baltimore
Smith's General History of Virginia
Smith's True Relation of Virginia
Tyler's Life of Patrick Henry
Tyler's History of American Literature
Virginia Historical Register, Ed. by W. Maxwell
Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
Whitaker's Good Newes from Virginia
William and Mary College Quarterly
Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry
Transcriber's Notes:
Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.
Superscripted characters are indicated by {superscript}.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Colonial Cavalier, by Maud Wilder Goodwin