A Love Story by A Bushman

It appeared to Sir Henry, that he had never seen life and death, so closely and painfully contrasted. There sat his brother, in the full energies of manhood and despair; his features convulsed--his frame quivering--his sobs frequent--his pulse quick and disturbed.

There lay extended his mistress--cold--colourless--silent--unimpassioned. There was life in the breeze that played on her raven tresses--grim death was enthroned on the face those tresses swept.

Not that decay's finger had yet really assailed it; but one of the peculiar properties of the preservative used by Doctor Pormont, is its pervading sepulchral odour.

They reached Rome; and the consummation of their task drew nigh.

Pass we over the husband's last earthly farewell. Pass we over that subduing scene, in which Henry assisted George to sever long ringlets, and rob the cold finger, of affection's dearest pledge.

Alas! these might be retained as the legacy of love.

They were useless as love's memento. Memory, the faithful mirror, forbade the relic gatherer ever to forget!

Would you know where Acme reposes?

A beautiful burial ground looks towards Rome. It is on a gentle declivity leaning to the south-east, and situated between Mount Aventine and the Monte Testaccio.

Its avenue is lined with high bushes of marsh roses; and the cemetery itself, is divided into three rude and impressive terraces.

_There_ sleeps--in a modest nook, surmounted by the wall-flower, and by creeping ivy, and by many-coloured shrubs, and by one simple yellow flower, of very peculiar and rare fragrance; a type, as the author of these pages deemed, of the wonderful etherialised genius of the man--_there_ sleeps, as posterity will judge him, the first of the poets of the age we live in--Percy Bysshe Shelley! There too, moulders that wonderful boy author--John Keats.

Who can pass his grave, and read that bitter inscription, dictated on his deathbed, by the heart-broken enthusiast, without the liveliest emotion?

The ancient wall of Rome, crowns the ridge of the slope we have described. Above it, stands the pyramid of Caius Caestius, constructed some twenty centuries since.

Immediately beneath it, in a line with a round tower buried with ivy, and near the vault of our beautiful countrywoman, Miss Bathurst, who was thrown from her horse and drowned in the Tiber, may be seen a sarcophagus of rough granite, surmounted by a black marble slab.

Luxuriant with wild flowers, and studded even in the winter season, with daisies and violets, the sides of the tomb are now almost concealed. Over the slab, one rose tree gracefully droops.

When seen in the dew of the morning, when the cups of the roses are full, and crystal drops, distilling from leaves and flowers, are slowly trickling on the dark stone, you might think that inanimate nature was weeping for the doom of beauty.

Only one word is engraved on that slab. Should you visit Rome, and read it, recollect this story.

That word is--"Acme!"

* * * * *

Sir Henry and his brother remained at Rome nearly a month.

The former, with hopes that the exertion might be useful, in distracting George from the constant contemplation of his loss, plunged at once into the sight-seeing of "the eternal city."