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Burke is no longer entitled to the praise the most consummate orator of modern times." "What can I say of what regards myself? To my humble name, Exegisti monumentum aere perennius." Many persons consider the Plymouth oration to be the finest of all Mr. Webster's efforts in this field.
There is a preface equally unclaimed by signatures or initials, but as it is in the singular number the two hommes de bouche can scarcely have written it; perchance it was M. Barba aforesaid, lord-proprietor of these not-to-be-touched treasures; but anyhow the writer had a very solemn feeling of the debt which he had conferred on society by making the contents public for the twelfth time, and he concludes with a mixture of sentiments, which it is very difficult to define: "Dans la paix de ma conscience, non moins que dans l'orgueil d'avoir si honorablement rempli cette importante mission, je m'ecrierai avec le poete des gourmands et des amoureux: "Exegi monumentum aere perennius Non omnis moriar."
George, who had been thinking about theatrical triumphs; about monumentum aere perennius; about lilacs; about love whispered and tenderly accepted, remembers that he has a letter from Harry in his pocket, and gaily produces it. "Let us hear what Mr. Truant says for himself, Aunt Lambert!" cries George, breaking the seal. Why is he so disturbed, as he reads the contents of his letter?
Elles se sont facilement evanuies, ne laissant a mes vers qu'une espece d'existence metaphysique." C'etait un air de negligence qu'il se donnait. His immortality through it is his boast. Exegi monumentum aere perennius Regalique situ pyramidum altius * Non omnis moriar. Art is not mere inspiration, the transient expression of private moods, but a work of communication, meant to endure.
There was the usual tall box with its bleached, rattling tenant; there were jars in rows where "interesting cases" outlived the grief of widows and heirs in alcoholic immortality, for your "preparation-jar" is the true "monumentum aere perennius;" there were various semi-possibilities of minute dimensions and unpromising developments; there were shining instruments of evil aspect, and grim plates on the walls, and on one shelf by itself, accursed and apart, coiled in a long cylinder of spirit, a huge crotalus, rough-scaled, flatheaded, variegated with dull bands, one of which partially encircled the neck like a collar, an awful wretch to look upon, with murder written all over him in horrid hieroglyphics.
We had met in Europe some dozen years ago I from Massachusetts, he from Carolina. We both looked grave for an instant as a friend presented us to each other, naming our respective residences, and then both laughed cheerily, and were good friends ever after. We enjoyed Tartuffe and the Mariage de Figaro in company with each other at the Theatre Francois, heard Mario, Grisi, Gratiano and Borghi Mamo in Verdi's Trovatore at the Opéra Italien, danced with les filles de l'Opéra at Cellarius's saloons, and had many a midnight carouse afterward at the Maison Doré. Nor had our time always been unprofitably spent. Toward Easter we journeyed together to Rome, and stood side by side before the masterpieces of Raphael and Domenichino in the Vatican, strolled by moonlight amid the ruins of the Coliseum, and drank out of the same cup from the Fountain of Trevi; often visited Crawford's studio, where then stood the famous group which now adorns the frieze of the Capitol at Washington, and by actual observation agreed in thinking his Indian not unworthy of comparison with the famous statue of the Dying Gladiator. We stood together on the Tarpeian Rock, and, looking down upon the mutilated Column of Trajan and all the ruins of ancient Rome, read out of the same copy of Horace the famous ode beginning, "Exegi monumentum aere perennius." We were both passionately fond of sculpture and of painting, and often sat for hours before the glorious Descent from the Cross of Daniel da Volterra in the Chiesa della Trinit
The power of organizing his thought, the art of writing a book, monumentum aere perennius, was indeed denied him he laments it bitterly; but, on the other hand, he is receptivity itself, responsive to all the great forces which move the time, catching and reflecting on the mobile mirror of his mind whatever winds are blowing from the hills of thought.
But the sentiment of these last words is substantially the same with the line of Horace: Exegi monumentum aere perennius. The whole peroration of this Biography is one of singular beauty and moral elevation.
The level of the lake is 564 feet higher than the Hudson, and there are eighty-one locks on the canal. It is to the genius and perseverance of De Witt Clinton that the United States owe the almost incalculable advantages of this inland navigation: "Exegit monumentum aere perennius."
Deep silence ensued: upon which, in a few words, ominous to the ear as the handwriting on the wall to the eye of Belshazzar, the stranger unfolded to Commodus the instant peril which menaced both his life and his throne, from his great servant Perennius.
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