I came to the place of my birth, and cried, “The friends of my Youth, where are they?”—And an echo answered, “Where are they?” From an Arabic MS. [2] _Awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise!_ When a traveller, who was surveying the ruins of Rome, expressed a desire to possess some relic of its antient grandeur, Poussin, who attended him, stooped down, and, gathering up a handful of earth shining with small grains of porphyry, “Take this home,” said he, “for your cabinet; and say boldly, _Questa è Roma Antica_.” [3] _The church-yard yews round which his fathers sleep_; Every man, like Gulliver in Lilliput, is fastened to some spot of earth, by the thousand small threads which habit and association are continually stealing over him. Of these, perhaps, one of the strongest is here alluded to. When the Canadian Indians were once solicited to emigrate, “What!” they replied, “shall we say to the bones of our fathers, Arise, and go with us into a foreign land?”—Hist. des Indes, par Raynal, vi. 21. [4] _So, when he breath’d his firm yet fond adieu_, See COOK’S first voyage, book i. chap. 16. Another very affecting instance of local attachment is related of his fellow-countryman Potaveri, who came to Europe with M. de Bougainville.—See LES JARDINS, chant, ii. [5] _So Scotia’s Queen, &c_. Elle se leve sur son lict, et se met a contempler la France encore, et tant qu’elle peut. BRANTÔME, i. 140. [6] _Thus kindred objects kindred thoughts inspire_. To an accidental association may be ascribed some of the noblest efforts of human genius. The Historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire first conceived his design among the ruins of the Capitol; and to the tones of a Welsh harp are we indebted for the Bard of Gray.—GIBBON’S Hist. xii. 432.—Mem. of Gray, sect. iv. let. 25. [7] _Hence home-felt pleasure, &c_. Who can sufficiently admire the affectionate attachment of Plutarch, who thus concludes his enumeration of the advantages of a great city to men of letters; “As to myself, I live in a little town; and I choose to live there, lest it should become still less,”—Vit. Demosth. [8] _For this young FOSCARI, &c_. He was suspected of murder, and at Venice suspicion is good evidence. Neither the interest of the Doge, his father, nor the intrepidity of conscious innocence, which he exhibited in the dungeon and on the rack, could procure his acquittal. He was banished to the island of Candia for life. But here his resolution failed him. At such a distance from home he could not live; and, as it was a criminal offence to solicit the intercession of any foreign prince, in a fit of despair he addressed a letter to the Duke of Milan, and intrusted it to a wretch whose perfidy, he knew, would occasion his being remanded a prisoner to Venice. [9] _And watch and weep in ELOISA’S cell_. The Paraclete, founded by Abelard, in Champagne. [10] _’Twas ever thus. As now at VIRGIL’S tomb_