The aspect of the scene, even as I witnessed it, was altogether very impressive. The coffin was covered with a pall, enriched by escutcheons wrought in gold. On the top was a lid, set round with black plumes. Upon it were these words,--
"GEORGE GORDON NOEL BYRON. BORN IN LONDON, 22D JANUARY, 1788. DIED AT MISSOLONGHI, APRIL 19TH, 1824."
At the head of the coffin was an urn containing the ashes of his brain and heart: this being also covered with a rich pall, wrought with figures in gold. The windows were closed, and the darkened room was feebly illumined by numerous wax tapers.
And this was all that remained of Byron! What a lesson upon the pride of genius, the vanity of rank, the fatuity of fame,--all levelled in the dust, and, despite the garnished pall and magnificent coffin, their possessor bound to pass through the same process of corruption as the body of a common beggar!
RETURN TO THE UNITED STATES--BOSTON AND ITS WORTHIES--BUSINESS OPERATIONS--ACKERMANN'S "FORGET-ME-NOT" THE PARENT OF ALL OTHER ANNUALS--THE AMERICAN SPECIES--THEIR DECLINE.
Having made a hurried excursion to Paris and back to London, I departed for Liverpool, and thence embarked for the United States, arriving there in October, 1824. I remained at Hartford till October, 1826, and then removed to Boston, with the intention of publishing original works, and at the same time of trying my hand at authorship--the latter part of my plan, however, known only to myself.
At that time Boston was recognized as the literary metropolis of the Union--the admitted Athens of America. Edward Everett had established the North-American Review, and though he had now just left the editorial chair, his spirit dwelt in it, and his fame lingered around it. R. H. Dana, Edward T. Channing, George Bancroft, and others, were among the rising lights of the literary horizon. Society was strongly impressed with literary tastes, and genius was respected and cherished. The day had not yet come when it was glory enough for a college professor to marry a hundred thousand dollars of stocks, or when it was the chief end of a lawyer to become the attorney of an insurance company, or a bank, or a manufacturing corporation. A Boston imprint on a book was equal to a certificate of good paper, good print, good binding, and good matter. And while such was the state of things at Boston, at New York the Harpers, who till recently had been mere printers in Dover street, had scarcely entered upon their career as publishers; and the other shining lights in the trade, at the present time, were either unborn, or in the nursery, or at school.