When this was shown to the stone-mason critic, (and Mr. Bowles
acknowledges he has heard worse public critics in his time,) he
observed, that the lines _might_ do with a _little_ alteration--thus:--
"My father, and my mother too, are dead,
And here I _put_ this grave-stone at their head;
My father lived to eighty-seven, my mother
No quite _so long_--and _one_ died after _t'other_."
* * * * *
PLEASURES OF HISTORY.
The effect of historical reading is analogous, in many respects to that
produced by foreign travel. The student, like the tourist, is
transported into a new state of society. He sees new fashions. He hears
new modes of expression. His mind enlarged by contemplating the wide
diversities of laws, of morals, of manners. But men may travel far, and
return with minds as contracted as if they had never retired from their
own market-towns. In the same manner, men may know the dates of many
battles, and the genealogies of many noble houses, and yet be no wiser.
Most people look at past times, as princes look at foreign countries.
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