The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1869-04-03

| of death, in her account of Falstaff death:
ga made a finer end, and went away as
| If it had been any christOm child. A
parted even Just before twelve and one, cen
at turning of the tide; for after | saw him
/ tumble with the sheets, and play with flow
ers, and smile upon his fingers ends,
knew there was but one way; for his nose
was as sharp as a pen, and a babbled of
] green fields. How now. Sir John, qUCth
what, man be of good cheer So a cried
out, God GOdl God three or four times.
| Now |, to comfort him, bid him a should
not think of God hoped there was no
need to trouble himself with such thoughts
| yet; so a bade me lay more clothes on his
! feet; put my hand into the bed and felt
/ them, and they were as cold as any stone"
For centuries it was customary in Eng
/ land to jerk the pillow from under the head
/ of dying persons, to hasten their departure
/ In Holland. when a child is departing life,
persons shade it by the hands from the
parents gaze-the soul being supposed tc
/ linger in the body as long as a compassion
ate eve is fixed upon It. The custom of
placing feather near the lips, TO ascertain
! whether the breath has really left the body,
is as old as our race. Shakespeare repre-
sents Prince Henry as having been deeeiFed
when he carried off the crown from hiss
fathers pillow:
There lies a dOwny feather which ssrs not:
Did he suspire, that light and weightless down
Perehance must move
In Devonshire, England, when one is dy-
ing it is customary to unfasten every lock
and holt in the house, as well of trunks
and chests of drawers as of doors
and windows. The reason assigned Is, that
the parting soul may both take leave Of all
familiar objects and also have free egress
from its home. The ''passing bell" was
universal in all the Cathedral towns of
England up to the beginning of the present
century. Its name indicates its meaning
the bell was tolled when the soul was pass
ing from this life. An old canon of the
Church of England Is express On the sub
ject: And when any person is passing out
of this life bell shall be toled, and the
minister shall not then be slack to do his
last duty" At DewsbRTy. in Somersetshire,
the passing bell has been tolled fer many
centuries on Christmas eve. The popular
and probably tue explanation Of this
strange custom is that it is the devil S knell
he having died when Christ was born.
In many parts both of Great Britain and
the United States there is. q superstition
preserved in the dist5ch:
Z" Happy is the wedding the sun. shines on
Blessed is the corpsesshe rain ra5ns'On.7
1t Is a curious but well established fact
that at all the hours from ten in the morn
ing until midnight deaths more rarely oe-
cur than from midnight until ten in the
forenoon-the latter being forty-fHe per
cent more than the f3rmer-And that more
deaths occur from fvs to sixe clock in the
morning than during all other hours, of the
day.
Within seven or eight hours. after death a.
rigidity comes upon the body 1t Is not con-
fined to the external muscles, but is mani
tested in the great or lesser blood-vessels
and in the heart The duration, OF this
rigidity is ordinarily Som twenty four to
thirty-six hours, wheE it. entirely passes
away, When the body is-greatly emaciated
or weakened by dseas = or distorted by loRg.
continued pain, it come on sooneT.Fa& is5
more evanescent. The researches of physi-
ology fail to account foTit 1t seems like
the final act of life, and has been supposed
to be be the last effort of musealar power.
The analogy it presents t3) the eaagulatiOn
of the blood has led to the belief that Il was
dependent upon that Neither Of these so-
lutiOns is now regarded satisfactory The
peculiar beauty of the humGn face in death,
that rapture of repOse to which B5FDni
alludes in the Giaour, improves as, the,
rigidity passes away from the. body, and is.
most perfect three days after death.
it was for a long time pOp1}ar supersti--
ton that the cOuntenance preserved in
death the impress the mind made ap0n it Ia
dying Such is not the case Neither
anger nor fer0city, as might be supposed to p
exist where death came from assassination
neither fear nor anguish, where it occurred
from the torture of the rack remains upon
the features. The same repose of cOUnte-
nance, the same indication of placid rest
steals over the last sleep. Leslie, the royal
academician, speaking in his autobiography
Of hon haa
drawings of the dead, and of the reluctance
with which in every case he entered the
room where the body lay, says that the faint
indication of a smile which always lighted
up the features of the dead, as he sat at
work, so attracted him that he invariably
felt reluctant to 90 away.
There is no doubt that causes wholly un-
connected with the state of mind or feeling
at the time of dissolution contribute to
beautify the features AntOmarchi's cast,
taken from the face of Napoleon after
death, is handsOmer tnan any bust or pOr-
trait, of him. HumbOldts head, wrought
IN marble by the sculptor from the cast
taken after his death, is not only more
grand than other numerous busts during his
life, but looks like man of sixty rather
than ninety-one and LOckhaTt remarks,
that there never was modelled more majes,
tic image of TepOse than the body of Sir
Walter Scott presented few hours after
death. In each of these cases death added
to the beauty Of faces of fine proportions
without any relation to metaphysical causes.
1t is so always. The faint smile which
steals over the face after consciousness has
ceased, and that tranquil repose of the dead
to which, in comparison, even the sleep of
an infant Is agitation, are parts of the un-
mystery that surround US