SCRAPS FROM OUR NOTE BOOK.

Tuapeka Times, Volume I, Issue 45, 19 December 1868, Page 3

SCRAPS FROM OUR NOTE BOOK.

NO. XIV.— ON WRITING ONE'S OWN EPITAPH. I ha.vo been amongst the tombs, and gazed witli no vintender or unpitying eye upon the monuments which affeciion has roared' over the last-resting-place of the loved ones who have passed tho Dark River. . "Strange, uncouth doggerel is graven on many of these stones, critically indefensible ; yet he that could sneer wliph brought thus face to face with the dark shado^y^ or could laugh while bending over the spot of earth most sacred to- some sad widow, tho kaaba of some mother's prayer, must indeed be akin to the man who

'" Could peep and botanise Upon his mother's grave-" No, albeit my graver mood is rare ; although the jest comes readier to my lips than the maxim, I also, scoffer and satirist, bow. before that power of affection which, stretching beyond the dull clay, ia- the veritable ladder of the patriarch, the golden- cord which binds earth to heaven. But while I adopt and admire the wise old saw, " of the dead nought but praise,!' one of those strange- whimsies- which will intrude even in the most solemnly sad hour of existence flits across my brain. What,. I think, would be the result if, instead of leaving the task to grateful heirs or loving friends, each man wrote his own epitaph ? "Would we still see the miser praised for prudence, the spendthrift for generosity, the politician for 'honesty ? or would the tender pity of our survivors leave our tombstones a tabula rasa? The poet, the Creator, swan-lik© sings his own dirge, for the forms with which he peoples bis fairy realm are no figments of the brain: .they are the- possibilities of his own existence. Shakspere, the many-sided, with his intense humanity, bad in him, and rare gift could articulate the knowledge, the seeds of a Brutus and an lago ; and he has given- us, not many men, bnt one ; yet how divine is that one. What blighting influence overshadowed tho cradle of an lachimo ? what good angel guarded the youth of Posthumus ! Yet in every diversity the great poet has given we can trace a possibility of worthiness, overgrown and warped it may be by years of vice, but- still apparent. Even lago is no Mephiatopheles :, it was left for a German to create a perfect devil. He is a stout soldier, and has some faint excuse by which he could lie his own soul into tbe belief his villainy was but retributive justice 1 . Byron, again, has, with a less scope of moral diversity, painted, in one unvarying hue, — himself. His dramatic genius is small, or, in other words, his mind was incapable of being directed in more than one direction. He may change the scene from the gilded halls of fashion to the storm-wrapt Wetterhorn ; but alike, whether in the Corsair's retreat, or on the death-pyre of the luxurious Sardanapalus, we are conscious the character is the same. He has no power of tracing back his life to the innocence of childhood, and bringing up hinißelf under various circumstances of example or training to a manhood of vice or virtue ; for one man cannot justly write the epitaph of another. I can mimic your peculiarities, imitate your deeds, O, my brother^ but the breath of life is in thy nostrils, and my creaiion id but a puppet after all. I may perchance don the ermine, and condemn you, shrinking sinner, to the scaffold, and speak; stern words of reproof, all unconscious of the wild inarticulate struggling against the feeling of crime engrained in youth ; the wild yearnings after virtue, only to be deadened by a madder plunge into vice which, has racked that unhappy breast. In the ancient mythos, Neptune is made to. reprove Pallas for •not forming a window in the breasts of men, whereby to read their thoughts ; Mndjjfc^chi a- method of knowledge 6 tTwt there not be. Wo might pe. r?"- S Jt to caat out w ** J i tartEfog c ' ~!? v^fc of our bo»<wn ; might xecognise.nou^fcpponp>^tvliom we have pursued in .the Ktefrelentmg hatred, a brother*

labourer in- the great field of truth, "Say on my tombstone, ' Here... lies • Ilarry Lawrence, who tried to do. hi». duty,' " , said the dying warrior' and statesman who saved an empire fo'rtho British crown, and a nobler epitaph was never penned for mortal man. For the path of duty is -very straight and rugged, and our best performances fall short of the ideal ; and the higKw&y* of pleasure is rose-bestrewn, and ajo|}g\ * its' course bourgeon the fairest biosJ3oinß of life. Ay, if all of us could write anL,epitaplilike.that,,wacould-a£^.--. fordto dispense .with aftejvdenth eulogy^" ;~ As it is, it is perhaps well we can have others to. lie fofus, and are- not com- . pelled to face eternity with an untruth ' i otf.our lips. ._ *,-