Literary Cadet And Rhode Island Statesman

The Sepulchre.

The man, who will ransack the domestic domicil, and enter the sepulchre of the dead, and riot among the ashes of those who slumber "to the plaintive music of the graves," to enable himself to put a specious colouring on a false argument, must possess the heart of a Hyena, and the irreligious feelings of an infidel.

By the way of any apology, offered to the young gentlemen of this place, who had been accused of the crime of intemperance, a writer, in one of the newspapers of the town, yesterday, announced, that he had been induced to speak on the subject of intemperance, in consequence of his having witnessed the untimely fall of a young man, recently placed beneath the "cold clod of the valley," who now moulders in the dust, and sleeps an "everlasting sleep," among the ashes of his ancestors. Whatever might have been the faults of the hapless victim, since he dwells in the "narrow house of clay," his memory should have been spared, and the already lacerated feelings of his friends, should not have been harrowed up. But an individual wished to gain a point; and reckless of the feelings of the friends of the departed unfortunate, he spoke of him, in the following strain of coarse and vulgar abuse:

"Such instances, [of degradation by intemperance] are but too frequent in every community, and we have just seen a most melancholy one, in the recent death of a young man once intelligent, industrious and highly respected among us, who doubtless by frequenting such places. [the respectable Inns of the town] gradually lost all self-respect, and ambition, until he was thrown upon public charity, and died the tenant of an Alms House."

The name of the unfortunate, alluded to in the foregoing extract, we shall not mention, since our readers will recognize it, without our resorting to such a step; and it is to defend his memory, thus maliciously assailed, that we have noticed the transaction. He was a young man, one of the companions of our youth, and was the pride and solace of his family. At an early age, he discovered talents of a higher order; and his friends, proud of his dawning excellence, anxious to assist him, and to cultivate the talents which God had given him, at too early a period in life. placed him at the head of an important business concern, which, for a while, proved unusually productive. He was then on the highway to fortune. but when he dreamt not of adversity, the times changed, the political relations between this country and Great-Britain, assumed a different aspect, and he, with others, was involved in ruin. An aged father and an aged mother, looked up to him for support; and cheerfully did he yield to them, the last shilling of his hard-earned gains, to rock the cradle of their declining age. But when, he saw that his prospects were cut off, and that he could not do his duty to his aged parents, despair-stricken, he resorted to excitements for relief: and ere he was aware of his danger, he became a victim of intemperance. Struggling against the torrent that oppressed him, and overcome by his sorrows, he at last bade hope farewell; when reason lost her empire, and he became a confirmed maniac.

He had now become so wretched, and so disgusting a maniac, that his friends, though they loved him, and would have sacrificed all to have restored his "shipwrecked mind," were compelled, from necessity, to confine him in one of the cells of our Alms House, the only receptacle--and to our shame it is said--we have for the crazed. There, under the guardianship of his humane and attentive keeper, he lingered his life out, and died the death of an unfortunate maniac, divested of reason, by the concurrence of ten thousand misfortunes. During the melancholy period of his insanity, he received the attentions of his relatives, and their repeated acts of kindess, in no small degree, smoothed his passage to the grave, and "lulled his senses into forgetfulness."

Whilst he was an inmate of a mad-house we often visited him; and whilst we listened to his half intelligible language and ravings, we pitied his sorrows, and lamented that we could not administer to his disordered mind. He was connected with several of the wealthy and most respectable families of the town, who are now unfeelingly, told, that the unhappy maniac died a drunkard, covered with ignominy and crime, and that so lost was he to all the decencies of life, that they suffered him to die in a common Alms House!

On Sunday last, he was placed among those "who slumber in eternal sleep;" and they who once were his companions in arms, mournfully followed him to the grave, and offered to his last remains, the honors of the soldier. Thus fell one, who had been the pride of his parents and an honour to society, and who, because he died a maniac, is traduced and defamed.

Alas! thrice miserable unfortunate, where will thy sufferings end! The world warred against thee, unkind fortune frowned upon thy early hopes, the cold grave affords thee no asylum, and calumny riots among thy ashes. And who, that beheld the companions of his better days, sadly following him to the "narrow house of clay," with arms reversed, and bestowing upon him the honors of the lifeless soldier, and heard the plaintive strains of the bugle and the murmurs of the muffled drum, would have believed, that ere he had slumbered in the sepulchre a day, a public Press, would have been employed in defiling his memory

Gladly do we retire from the subject, and leave the friends of the departed, lest we add fresh wounds to their already lacerated hearts; whilst the public may consider the motives, which incited the traducer to action.