this testamentary petition mentioned where the graves were, beside which they fain would lie, nor in any one instance have they been positively identified. That of Elder Brewster, concerning whose burial we have many particulars, is altogether unknown, except that it seems to have been made upon Burying Hill. Perhaps that of Standish is there also, for when he says,—“If I die at Duxburrow I should like,” etc., he may mean that if he dies in Duxbury he would fain be carried to Plymouth, there to lie beside his daughters and very likely his two little sons as well.
But to me it seems a small matter, this question of the grave of Standish. He lived to be old and very infirm, and neither his old age, his infirmities, nor his final surrender to death are any part of his memory. For me, he stands forever as he stood in his glorious prime among the people he so unselfishly championed, a tower of strength, courage, and endurance, the shining survival of chivalry, the gallant paladin whose coat-armor gleams amid the throng of russet jerkins and mantles of hodden gray, like the dash of color with which Turner accents his wastes of sombre water and sky. So let him stand, so let us look upon him, and honor him and glory in him, nor seek to draw the veil with which Time mercifully hides the only defeat our hero ever knew, that last fatal battle when age, and “dolorous pain,” and fell disease, conquered the invincible, and restored to earth all that was mortal of a magnificent immortality. We cannot erect a monu-
