"You will, (says the same eulogist,) no doubt, be astonished to understand, that the remains of this great and excellent man still repose in a humble sepulchre on the estate at which he resided, and from which, like Cincinnatus, he was several times called by his country. The Americans are certainly not ungrateful, but they seem to have an aversion to perpetuate a man's name by "monumental brass," or to express their gratitude by splendid tombs, or ponderous and magnificent mausolea. Your long acquaintance with Westminster Abbey, where the high and the low, the great and the obscure, the good man and the villain, are alike honoured by their country or their friends, may, perhaps, draw from you a burst of indignation, at the imaginary apathy and indifference of this great republic, to the memory {476} and past services of its illustrious dead, but I question whether it be not correct policy. To begin would be to have no end, and the erection of a monument to Washington might terminate, as in Russia, with a monument to a dog. Since the invention of writing, and the present extent of knowledge, the "storied urn and animated bust," have become almost useless. History will record with fidelity the illustrious actions of him who has deserved well of his country, and his name will be as perpetual as if Pelion had been piled on Ossa, to preserve his memory. It was doubtless owing to the want of this art, that the humble tumuli of the Celts, and the massy pyramids of the Egyptians, were formed; they had no other mode of expressing their gratitude, or of perpetuating the memory of their dead. After all, perhaps, the best monument is "to read their history in a nation's eyes.