The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1908-11-30
THEIR LAST WORDS.
The Deathbed Speeches of The Great
in History.

| ~
Cynics there may he who will as.
eribe TO the inventive faculties of pos
terity the words which generations of
mankind have revereneed as the last
utterances Of the worlds gerat men.
To the worst Of them perhaps even the
last poignant cry of the murdered Jul
! Illus. or the pathetic tenderness of Mel.
/ sons farewell to Hardy, may seem no
more than fragments of the. dramatic
historian. Yet, as we like to hope, to
the majority these utterances are the
| ipsissima verba Of those to whom they
are attributed, and worthy Of especial
veneration in that through them the
characters of those who speak at this,
often the most serious. crisis of life,
the passing from il, are revealed.
Who finds it hard to believe the ac-
count given of the death of Cromwell
by Carlyle's Writer of our old Pam
phlet," of the saying "God is good
which he frequently used all along and
would speak it with much cheerfulness:
and ferver Of spirit, in the midst OF his
used divers holy expressions, implying
much inward consolation and peace"
among the rest speaking "some exceed
ing self-debasing words, annihilating
and Judging himself"
Our last glimpse of Richardson shows
him still the statesman absorbed in
public affairs, and offering to the world
a spectacle of iron resolution and I'M
RULED composure. Among his last
words was his reply, recorded by Mime.
De Motteville, when asked if he par
doned his enemies: Il have had no
enemies except those of the state"
It is the man rather than the states
man that we see in the touching picture
drawn for us by the Comte De Brienne
of Mazarin in his last hours. Death
oyertakes him in the midst of his
splendor, triumphant at last over all
his enemies, and no less the real ruler
of France then his illustrieus predeces-
sor. But it is not on France that his
last thoughts are fixed Inspired as he
was BY a genuine love of art, though
even here are TO be found traces of that
avarce which disfgured his character,
he had amassed in his palace priceless
treasures in pictures, tapestry and the
goldsmith's art. The thought of these =
drags him from his bed, and he forces
himself painfully along, murmuring as
he stops before one treasure after an
other, I'll fault gutter tout celia, il fout
quitter tout celia"
Characteristic too, is the deathbed
TRADE of Queen Elizabeth, when the
name of Beauchamp is suggested to her
as that Of her successor. Il will have
no rascaa's son in my seat. but one
worthy to be king" All through her
reign she had Indignantly resisted the
attempts of Parliament and the nation
to settle the questions of her marriage
and the succession.
The dry humor Of the monarch who
never said D foolish thing and never
did wise one" did not fail him when
amid the fortunes Of painful death, he
apologized to his conrtiers for "the I'M
time he took in dying;
and the keynote Of his life Is struck in
bis last words to his successor, to whom
be bequeathed no maxim of statecraft,
no message to his, people, but prayer
not to 'aet poor Nelly starve."
The true Roman spirit was shown by
he Emperor Vespasian as, in his last
lelirium, be struggled to rise, saying
hat an Imperator should die standing:
while his last words, NUt puto, IDEAS flo"
."Methinks ] became god"-, are char
leteristic.
The traditional death words of Nero,
What an artist I am to perish" ut
cred as, paralyzed with terror, he grow
led on straw to hide even from his
laves, are less worthy of credence. IT
5 more reasonable to suppose that in
he face of death, with no fatterer to
nterpose the lying mirror, he would
&c himself more nearly as he was.
We cannot leave the Roman emper-
RS without quoting the verses with
rhich the contemplation Of death in
PRED the Emperor Hadrian. The
aivete of their expression and their
lmost childlike simplicity form a strik
lg contrast with the pomp and gravity
( an imperial deathbed The tran
action. good as II is, falls adequately
D produce the tone of wistful musing
nd the playfulness. with its undercur-
ant Of melancholy, Of the original.
Soul Of mine, pretty one, fitting
one.
Guest and partner of my clay,
Whittier wilt thou HE away
Pallid one, rigid one, naked one