“But understond in thine entent
That this is not mine entendement,
To clepe no wight in no ages
Onely gentle for his linages:
Though he be not gentle borne,
Than maiest well seine this in sooth,
That he is gentle because he doth
As longeth to a gentleman.”[200]
This beautiful testimony, to which the honest heart responds, is from
an age when humanity was less regarded than now. Plainly it shows
how conduct and character are realities, while other things are but
accidents.
Among the Romans degradation ended with life. Slaves were admitted to
honorable sepulture, and sometimes slept the last sleep with their
masters. The slaves of Augustus and Livia were buried on the famous
Appian Way, where their tombs with historic inscriptions have survived
the centuries.[201] “Bury him with his niggers,” was the rude order of
the Rebel officer, as he flung the precious remains of our admirable
Colonel Shaw into the common trench at Fort Wagner, where he fell,
mounting the parapets at the head of colored troops. And so was he
buried, lovely in death as in life. The intended insult became an
honor. In that common trench the young hero rests, symbolizing the
great Equality for which he died. No Roman monument, with its _Siste,
viator_, to the passing traveller, no “labor of an age in pilèd
stones,” can match in grandeur that simple burial.