During its whole progress, Death is maki_Graham's Magazine, Vol. XL, No. 3, March 1852

the domain of life. Function after function undergoes impairment, and is

less and less perfectly carried on, while organ after organ suffers

atrophy and other changes, unfitting it for the performance of offices

to which it was originally designed. I will not go over the gloomy

detail of the observed modifications occurring in every part of the

frame, now a noble ruin, majestic even in decay. The lungs admit and

vivify less blood; the heart often diminishes in size and always acts

more slowly, and the arteries frequently ossify; nutrition is impeded

and assimilation deteriorated; senile marasmus follows, “and the seventh

age falls into the lean and slippered pantaloon;” and, last and worst of

all, the brain and indeed the whole nervous tissue shrink in size and

weight, undergoing at the same time more or less change of structure and

composition. As the skull cannot contract on its contents, the shrinking

of the brain occasions a great increase of the fluid within the

subarachnoid space. Communication with the outer world, now about to be

cut off entirely, becomes limited and less intimate. The eyes grow dim;

the ear loses its aptitude for harmony, and soon ceases to appreciate

sound; odors yield no fragrance; flavors affect not the indifferent

palate; and even the touch appreciates only harsh and coarse

impressions. The locomotive power is lost; the capillaries refuse to

circulate the dark, thick blood; the extremities retain no longer their

vital warmth; the breathing slow and oppressed, more and more difficult,

at last terminates forever with a deep expiration. This tedious process

is rarely accomplished in the manner indicated without interruption; it

is usually, nay, as far as my experience has gone, always brought to an

abrupt close by the supervention of some positive malady. In our

climate, this is, in the larger proportion, an affection of the

respiratory apparatus, bronchitis, or pulmonitis. It will, of course,

vary with the original or constitutional predisposition of the

individual, and somewhat in relation to locality and season. Many aged

persons die of apoplexy and its kindred cerebral maladies, not a few of

diarrhœa; a winter epidemic of influenza is apt to be fatal to them in

large numbers everywhere.

When we regard death pathologically, that is, as the result of violence

and destructive disease, it is evident that the phenomena presented will

vary relatively to the contingencies effective in producing it. It is

obviously out of place here to recount them, forming as they do a vast

collection of instructive facts, the basis indeed of an almost separate

science, Morbid Anatomy.

There are many of the phenomena of death, however, that are common to

all forms and modes of death, or are rarely wanting; these are highly

interesting objects of study in themselves, and assume a still greater

importance when we consider them in the light of signs or tokens of the

extinction of life. It seems strange that it has been found difficult to

agree upon any such signs short of molecular change or putrefactive

decomposition, that shall be pronounced absolutely certain, and

calculated entirely to relieve us from the horrible chance of premature

interment of a body yet living. The flaccidity of the cornea is dwelt on

by some; others trust rather to the _rigor mortis_, the rigid stiffness

of the limbs and trunk supervening upon the cold relaxation which

attends generally the last moments. This rigidity is not understood or

explained satisfactorily. It is possible that, as Matteucci has proved,

the changes in all the tissues, chiefly chemical or chemico-vital, are

the source from whence is generated the “nervous force” during life; so,

after death, the similar changes, now purely chemical, may, for a brief

period, continue to generate the same or a similar force, which is

destined to expend itself simply upon the muscular fibres in disposing

them to contract. There is a vague analogy here with the effect of

galvanism upon bodies recently dead, which derives some little force

from the fact that the bodies least disposed to respond to the stimulus

of galvanism are those which form the exceptions to the almost universal

exhibition of rigidity—those, namely, which have been killed by

lightning, and by blows on the pit of the stomach. Some poisons, too,

leave the corpse quite flaccid and flexible.

The researches of Dr. Bennett Dowler, of New Orleans, have presented us

with results profoundly impressive, startling, and instructive. He has,

with almost unequalled zeal, availed himself of opportunities of

performing autopsy at a period following death of unprecedented

promptness, that is, within a few minutes after the last struggle, and

employed them with an intelligent curiosity and to admirable purpose.

I have said that, in physiological death, the natural decay of advancing

age, there is a gradual encroachment of death upon life; so here, in

premature death from violent diseases, the contrasted analogy is offered

of life maintaining its ground far amidst the destructive changes of

death. Thus, in cholera asphyxia, the body, for an indefinite period

after all other signs of life have ceased, is agitated by horrid spasms,

and violently contorted. We learn from Dr. Dowler that it is not only in

these frightful manifestations, and in the cold stiffness of the

familiar _rigor mortis_, that we are to trace this tenacious muscular

contraction as the last vital sign, but that in all, or almost all cases

we shall find it lingering, not in the heart, anciently considered in

its right ventricle the _ultimum moriens_, nor in any other internal

fibres, but in the muscles of the limbs, the biceps most obstinately.

This muscle will contract, even after the arm with the scapula has been

torn from the trunk, upon receiving a sharp blow, so as to raise the

forearm from the table, to a right angle with the upper arm.

We also learn from him the curious fact that the generation of animal

heat, which physiologists have chosen to point out as a function most

purely vital, does not cease upon the supervention of obvious or

apparent death. There is, he tells us, a steady development for some

time of what he terms “post-mortem caloricity,” by which the heat is

carried not only above the natural or normal standard, but to a height

rarely equalled in the most sthenic or inflammatory forms of disease. He

has seen it reach 113° of Fahr., higher than Hunter ever met with it, in

his experiments made for the purpose of exciting it; higher than it has

been noted even in scarlatina, 112°, I think, being the ultimate limit

observed in that disease of pungent external heat; and far beyond the

natural heat of the central parts of the healthy body, which is 97° or

98°. Nor is it near the centre, or at the trunk, that the post-mortem

warmth is greatest, but, for some unknown reason, at the inner part of

the thigh, about the lower margin of its upper third. I scarcely know

any fact in nature more incomprehensible or inexplicable than this. We

were surprised when it was first told us that, in the Asiatic

pestilence, the body of the livid victim was often colder before than

after death; but this, I think, is easily understood. The profluvia of

cholera, and its profound capillary stagnation, concur in carrying off

all the heat generated, and in preventing or impeding the development of

animal heat. No vital actions, no changes necessary to the production of

caloric, can proceed without the minute circulation which has been

checked by the asphyxiated condition of the subject, while the fluids

leave the body through every outlet, and evaporation chills the whole

exposed and relaxed surface. Yet the lingering influence of a scarcely

perceptible vitality prevents the purely chemical changes of

putrefactive decomposition, which commence instantly upon the extinction

of this feeble resistance, and caloric is evolved by the processes of

ordinary delay.

In the admirable liturgy of the churches of England and of Rome, there

is a fervent prayer for protection against “battle, murder, and sudden

death.” From death uncontemplated, unarranged, unprepared for, may

Heaven in mercy deliver us! But if ever ready, as we should be for the

inevitable event, the most kindly mode of infliction must surely be that

which is most prompt and brief. To die unconsciously, as in sleep, or by

apoplexy, or lightning, or overwhelming violence, as in the catastrophe

of the Princeton, this is the true Euthanasia. “Cæsar,” says Suetonius,

“finem vitæ commodissimum, repentinum inopinatumque pretulerat.”

Montaigne, who quotes this, renders it, “La moins préméditée et la plus

courte.” “Mortes repentinæ,” reasons Pliny, “hoc est summa vitæ

felicitas.” “Emori nolo,” exclaims Cicero, “sed me esse mortuum nihil

estimo.”

Sufferers by various modes of execution were often, in the good old

times of our merciless ancestors, denied as long as possible the

privilege of dying, and the Indians of our continent utter a fiendish

howl of disappointment when a victim thus prematurely escapes from their

ingenious malignity. The _coup de grace_ was a boon unspeakably desired

by the poor wretch broken on the wheel, or stretched upon the accursed

cross, and forced to linger on with mangled and bleeding limbs, amidst

all the cruel torments of thirst and fever, through hours and even days

that must have seemed interminable.

The progress of civilization, and a more enlightened humanity have put

an end to all these atrocities, and substituted the gallows, the

garrote, and the guillotine, which inflict deaths so sudden that many

have questioned whether they necessarily imply any consciousness of

physical suffering. These are, however, by no means the most

instantaneous modes of putting an end to life and its manifestations. In

the hanged, as in the drowned, and otherwise suffocated, there is a

period of uncertainty, during which the subject is, as we know,

recoverable; we dare not pronounce him insensible. He who has seen an ox

“pithed” in the slaughter-house, or a game-cock in all the flush and

excitement of battle “gaffed” in the occiput or back of the neck, will

contrast the immediate stiffness and relaxation of the flaccid body with

the prolonged and convulsive struggles of the decapitated bird, with a

sort of curious anxiety to know how long and in what degree sensibility

may linger in the head and in the trunk when severed by the sharp axe.

The history of the guillotine offers many incidents calculated to throw

a doubt on the subject, and the inquiries of Seguret and Sue seem to

prove the existence of post-mortem passion and emotion.

Among the promptest modes of extinguishing life is the electric fluid. A

flash of lightning will destroy the coagulability of the blood, as well

as the contractility of the muscular fibre; the dead body remaining

flexible. A blow on the epigastrium kills instantly with the same

results. Soldiers fall sometimes in battle without a wound; the impulse

of a cannon-ball passing near the pit of the stomach is here supposed to

be the cause of death. The effect in these two last instances is

ascribed by some to “a shock given to the semilunar ganglion, and the

communication of the impression to the heart;” but this is insufficient

to account either for the quickness of the occurrence, or the peculiar

changes impressed upon the solids and fluids. Others are of opinion that

the whole set of respiratory nerves is paralyzed through the violent

shock given to the phrenic, “thus shutting up,” as one writer expresses

it, “the fountain of all the sympathetic actions of the system.” This

hypothesis is liable also to the objections urged above; and we must

acknowledge the suddenness and character of the results described to be

as yet unexplained, and in the present state of our knowledge

inexplicable.

On the field of battle, it has been observed that the countenances of

those killed by gun-shot wounds are usually placid, while those who

perish by the sword, bayonet, pike, or lance, offer visages distorted by

pain, or by emotions of anger or impatience. Poisons differ much among

themselves as to the amount and kind of suffering they occasion. We know

of none which are absolutely free from the risk of inflicting severe

distress. Prussic acid gives perhaps the briefest death which we have

occasion to observe. I have seen it, as Taylor states, kill an animal,

when applied to the tongue or the eye, almost before the hand which

offered it could be removed. Yet in the case of Tawell, tried for the

murder of Sarah Hart, by this means, there was abundant testimony that

many, on taking it, had time to utter a loud and peculiar scream of

anguish: and in a successful attempt at suicide made by a physician of

New York city, we have a history of appalling suffering and violent

convulsion. So I have seen in suicide with opium, which generally gives

an easy and soporose death resembling that of apoplexy, one or two

instances in which there were very great and long-protracted pain and

sickness.

Medical writers have agreed, very generally, that “the death-struggle,”

“the agony of death,” as it has long been termed is not what it appears,

a stage of suffering. I am not satisfied—I say it reluctantly—I am not

satisfied with these consolatory views, so ingeniously and plausibly

advocated by Wilson Philip, and Symonds, Hufeland and Hoffman. I would

they were true! But all the symptoms look like tokens or expressions of

distress; we may hope that they are not always such in reality: but how

can this be proved? Those who, having seemed to die, recovered afterward

and declared that they had undergone no pain, do not convince me of the

fact any more than the somnambulist, who upon awaking, assures me that

he has not dreamed at all, after a whole night of action, and connected

thought and effected purpose. His memory retains no traces of the

questionable past; like that of the epileptic, who forgets the whole

train of events, and is astonished after a horrible fit to find his

tongue bitten, and his face and limbs bruised and swollen.

Nay, some have proceeded to the paradoxical extreme of suggesting that

certain modes of death are attended with pleasurable sensations, as for

instance, hanging; and a late reviewer, who regards this sombre topic

with a most cheerful eye, gives us instances which he considers in

point. I have seen many men hung, forty at least, a strangely large

number. In all, there were evidences of suffering, as far as could be

judged by external appearances. It once happened that a certain set were

slowly executed, owing to a maladroit arrangement of the scaffold upon

which they stood, which gave way only at one end. The struggles of such

as were half supported were dreadful, and those of them who could speak

earnestly begged that their agonies should be put an end to.

In former, nay, even in recent times, we are told that pirates and

robbers have resorted to half-hanging, to extort confession as to hidden

treasure. Is it possible that they can have so much mistaken the means

they employ as thus to use pleasurable appliances for the purposes of

torture?

The mistake of most reasoners on the subject, Winslow and Hufeland more

especially, consists in this, that they fix their attention exclusively

upon the final moments of dissolution. But the act of dying may be in

disease, as we know it to be in many modes of violence, impalement, for

example, or crucifixion, very variously protracted and progressive.

“Insensibly as we enter life,” says Hufeland, “equally insensibly do we

leave it. Man can have no sensation of dying.” Here the insensibility of

_death completed_, that is, of _the dead body_, is strangely predicated

of the moribund while still living. This transitive condition, to use

the graphic language of the Southern writer whom we have already more

than once quoted, is “a terra incognita, where vitality, extinguished in

some tissues, smouldering in others, and disappearing gradually from

all, resembles the region of a volcano, whose eruptions subsiding, leave

the surface covered with cinders and ashes, concealing the rents and

lesions which have on all sides scarred and disfigured the face of

nature.”

Besides this, we have no right to assume, as Hufeland has here done, the

insensibility of the child at birth. It is subject to disease before

birth; as soon as it draws a breath, it utters loud cries and sobs. To

pronounce all its actions “mechanical, instinctive, necessary,

automatic,” in fact, is a very easy solution of the question; but I

think neither rational nor conclusive. If you prick it or burn it, you

regard its cries as proving sensibility to pain; but on the application

of air to its delicate and hitherto protected skin, and the distension

of its hitherto quiet lung, the same cry, you say, is mechanical and

inexpressive. So Leibnitz explained, to his own satisfaction, the

struggles and moans of the lower animals as automatic, being embarrassed

with metaphysical and moral difficulties on the score of their

intelligence and liability to suffering. But no one now espouses his

theory, and we must accept, whether we can explain them or not, the

facts that the lower animals are liable to pain during their entire

existence, and that the heritage of their master is, from and during

birth to the last moment of languishing vitality, a sad legacy of wo and

suffering.

Unhappily we may appeal, in this discussion, directly to the evidence of

our senses, to universal experience and observation. Who can doubt the

tortures inflicted in tetanus? to alleviate which, indeed, I have more

than once been solicited for poison. Does not every one know the

grievous inflictions of cancer, lasting through months and years, and

continuing, as I have myself seen, within a short hour of the absolute

extinction of life, in spite of every effort to relieve it? The most

painful of deaths apparently is that which closes the frightful tragedy

of hydrophobia, and patients, to hurry it, often ask most urgently for

any means of prompt destruction. But these more intense and acute pangs

are not the only form of intolerable agony. Unquenchable thirst, a

dreadfully progressive suffocation, confusion of the senses and of

thought—these are inflictions that nature shudderingly recoils from,

and these, or their manifestations, are scarcely ever wanting on the

death-bed.

If any one should ask why I thus endeavor to prove what it is revolting

to us all to believe or admit, I answer—first, that truth is always

desirable to be known both for its own sake and because it is ever

pregnant with ultimate benefit and utility. More than one moribund has

expressed to me his surprise and horror—shall I say disappointment too?

at finding the dark valley of the shadow of death so rough and gloomy

and full of terrors. Is it not better that we should be as thoroughly

and adequately prepared for the stern reality as may be, and that we

should summon up all the patience and fortitude requisite to bear us

through? When the last moment is actually at hand, we can safely assure

our friends that they will soon reach a state of rest and

unconsciousness, and that meanwhile, as they die more and more, they

will less and less feel the pain of dying. Secondly, by appreciating

properly the nature and amount of the pangs of death, we shall be led to

a due estimate of the demand for their relief or palliation, and of the

obligation incumbent on us to institute every proper effort for that

purpose with zeal and assiduity. He who believes with Hufeland, that the

moribund is insensible, is likely to do little to solace or comfort him.

There are doubtless instances of death entirely easy. “I wish,” said

Doctor Black, “I could hold a pen; I would write how pleasant a thing it

is to die.” Dr. George Fordyce desired his youngest daughter to read to

him. When she had been reading some time, he called to her—“Stop; go

out of the room; I am going to die.” She left him, and an attendant,

entering immediately, found him dead. “Is it possible I am dying?”

exclaimed a lady patient of mine; “I feel as if going into a sweet

sleep.” “I am drowsy, had I better indulge myself?” asked Capt. G. On my

giving him an affirmative answer, he turned, and sank into a slumber

from which he awoke no more. It is indeed pleasant to know that examples

occur of this unconscious and painless dissolution; but I fear they are

comparatively rare exceptions to a natural rule; and I regard it as the

duty of the medical profession to add to the number by the judicious

employment of every means in our power.

And this leads me to a brief consideration of the question so often

pressed upon us in one shape or another by the friends of our patients,

and sometimes by our patients themselves: If the tendency of any

medicinal or palliative agent be to shorten life, while it assuages

pain, has the physician a right to resort to it? Even in the latter

stages of some inflammatory affections, loss of blood, especially if

carried to fainting, will arrest the sharp pangs, but the patient will

probably die somewhat sooner: shall we bleed him? Large doses of opium

will tranquilize him, or render him insensible; but he will probably

sink somewhat earlier into the stupor of death. Shall we administer it,

or shall we let him linger on in pain, merely that he may linger?

Chloroform, ether, and other anæsthetics in full dose inspired render us

insensible to all forms of anguish, and make death as easy, to use the

phrase of Hufeland, as being born! Shall we allow our agonized moribund

to inhale them? Used in less amount, a degree of relief and palliation

is procured, but at the risk of exhausting or prostrating more promptly

the failing energies of the system. Shall we avail ourselves of their

anæsthetic influences, or are they forbidden us, either absolutely or

partially?

These are by some moralists considered very delicate questions in

ethics. Desgenettes has been highly applauded for the reply he made to

Bonaparte’s suggestion, that it would be better for the miserable sick

left by the French army at Jaffa to be drugged with opium: “It is my

business to save life, not to destroy it.” But, in approving the

physician, we must not harshly condemn the commanding officer. When we

reflect on the condition of the men whom the fortune of war compelled

him to abandon, and the certainty of a horrible death to each victim

from wasting disease or Turkish cruelty, a rational philanthropist might

well desire to smooth their passage to the grave.

During the employment of torture for the purposes of tyranny in Church

and State, a physician or surgeon was at hand, whose whole duty it was

to suspend the process whenever it became probable that nature would

yield under its pressure, and the victim would escape through the

opening, glad gates of death. It was then esteemed an act of mercy to

give, or permit to be given by the executioner, a fatal blow, hence

called emphatically and justly the _coup de grace_. In the terrible

history of the invasion of Russia by Napoleon, we shudder to read that,

after their expulsion from Moscow, the French soldiers, in repassing the

fields of battles fought days and even weeks previously, found many of

their comrades, there wounded and left, still dragging out a wretched

and hopeless existence, amidst the corpses of those more fortunately

slain outright, and perishing miserably and slowly of cold and hunger,

and festering and gangrenous wounds. One need not surely offer a single

argument to prove, all must feel and admit that the kindest office of

humanity, under the circumstances, would have been to put an end to this

indescribable mass of protracted wretchedness by the promptest means

that could be used to extinguish so horrible a life.

A common case presents itself from time to time to every practitioner,

in which all hope is avowedly extinct, and yet, in consonance with

uniform custom, stimulants are assiduously prescribed to prolong

existence in the midst of convulsive and delirious throes, not to be

looked on without dismay. In some such contingencies, where the ultimate

result was palpably certain, I have seen them at last abandoned as

useless and worse, in order that nature, irritated and excited, lashed

into factitious and transitory energy, might sink into repose; and have

felt a melancholy satisfaction in witnessing the tranquillity, so soft

and gentle, that soon ensued; the stormy agitation subsiding into a calm

and peaceful decay.

Responsibility of the kind I am contemplating, often indeed more obvious

and definite, presses upon the obstetrician, and is met unreservedly. In

embryulcia, one life is sacrificed in the hope and with the reasonable

prospect of saving another more valued: this is done too sometimes where

there is an alternative presented, the Cæsarian section, which destroys

neither of absolute necessity, but subjects the better life to very

great risk.

Patients themselves frequently prefer the prompter and more lenient

motives of death which our science refuses to inflict. In summing up the

motives of suicide in one hundred and thirty-one cases, whose causes are

supposed to be known, Prevost tells us that thirty-four, more than

one-fourth of the whole number, committed self-murder to rid themselves

of the oppressive burden of physical disease. Winslow gives us an

analysis of thirteen hundred and thirty-three suicides from Pinel,

Esquirol, Burrows, and others. Of these, there were but two hundred and

fifty that did not present obvious appearances of bodily ailment; and

although it is not stated how many of them sought death voluntarily as a

refuge from physical suffering, it would be unreasonable to doubt that

this was the purpose with a very large proportion. I am far from

advocating the propriety of yielding to this desire or gratifying the

propensity; nay, I would, on the other hand, earnestly endeavor to

remove or repress it, as is now the admitted rule.

I hold fully, with Pascal, that, according to the principles of

Christianity, which in this entirely oppose the false notions of

paganism, a man “does not possess power over his own life.” I

acknowledge and maintain that the obligation to perform unceasingly, and

to the last and utmost of our ability, all the duties which appertain to

our condition, renders absolutely incompatible the right supposed by

some to belong to every one to dispose of himself at his own will. But I

would present the question for the serious consideration of the

profession, whether there does not, now and then, though very rarely,

occur an exceptional case, in which they might, upon full and frank

consultation, be justified before God and man in relieving, by the

efficient use of anæsthetics, at whatever risk, the ineffable and

incurable anguish of a fellow-creature laboring under disease of organic

destructiveness, or inevitably mortal; such, for example, as we are

doomed to witness in hydrophobia, and even more clearly in some

instances of cancerous and fungoid degeneration, and in the sphacelation

of organs necessary to life, or parts so connected as to be

indispensable, yet not allowing either of removal or restoration?

I have left myself scarcely time for a few remarks upon death,

psychologically considered. How is the mind affected by the anticipation

and actual approach of death? The answer will obviously depend upon and

be influenced by a great diversity of contingencies, moral and physical.

The love of life is an instinct implanted in us for wise purposes; so is

the fear of pain. Apart from this, I do not believe, as many teach, that

there is any instinctive fear of death. Education, which instills into

us, when young, the fear of spectres; religious doctrines, which awake

in us the terror of “something after death;” conscience, which, when

instructed, “makes cowards of us all;” associations of a revolting

character—

“The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave—

The deep, damp vault, the darkness, and the worm;”

these startle and appal us.

“Man makes a death that nature never made,

Then on the point of his own fancy falls.

And feels a thousand deaths in fearing one.”

We sympathize duly with every instinct of nature; we all feel the love

of life, and accord readily in the warmest expression of it; but we

recoil from every strong exhibition of the fear of death as unreasonable

and dastardly.

When Claudio reminds his noble sister that “death is a fearful thing,”

she replies well—“and shamed life a hateful!” But when he rejoins—

“The weariest and most loathed worldly life

That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment

Can lay on nature, is a paradise

To what we fear of death;”

we anticipate her in bidding him “Perish! for a faithless coward, and a

beast.”

In the same contemptible and shrinking spirit, Mæcenas, in a passage

from Seneca—

“Vita, dum superest bene est

Hunc mihi vel acuta

Si sedeam cruce, sustine.”

Among hypochondriacs, we often meet with the seemingly paradoxical

combination of an intense dread of death unassociated with any

perceptible attachment to life; a morbid and most pitiable condition,

which urges some to repeated, but ineffectual attempts at suicide. I

know not a state of mind more utterly wretched.

Both these sentiments, whether instinctive or educational, are, we

should observe, very strikingly influenced by circumstances.

Occasionally, they seem to be obliterated, or nearly so; not only in

individuals, but in large masses, nay, in whole communities; as during

great social convulsions; through the reign of a devastating pestilence;

under the shock of repeated disorders of the elements; as in

earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, storms, and inundations; in protracted

sieges, and in shipwrecks. The Reign of Terror produced this state of

feeling in France, and thousands went to the scaffold indifferently, or

with a jest. Boccacio and others have pictured the same state of

undejected despair, if such a phrase be permitted, in which men succumb

to fate, and say, with a sort of cheerful hardihood, “Let us eat and

drink, for to-morrow we die,” losing thus all dread even of the plague.

Pliny the younger, in his flight from Mycena, under the fatal shower of

ashes from Vesuvius, heard, amidst the darkness, the prayers of wretches

“who desired to die, that they might be released from the expectation of

death.” And Byron, in his magnificent description of the shipwreck, in

Don Juan, tells us—

“Some leaped overboard with dreadful yell,

As eager to anticipate the grave.”

Shakspeare’s Constance, in her grief, draws well the character of death,

as—

“Misery’s love,

The hate and terror of prosperity.”

A woman who has lost her honor; a soldier convicted of poltroonery; a

patriot who sees his country enslaved; a miser robbed; a speculator

bankrupt; a poet unappreciated, or harshly criticized, as in poor

Keats’s case—

“Strange that the soul, that very fiery particle,

Should let itself be snuffed out by an article”—

all these seem to loathe life, or, at any rate, lose much of their

fondness for it. It is curious to remark, too, how little, as in the

last-mentioned instance, will suffice to extinguish, abruptly or

gradually, this usually tenacious instinct. A man in York cut his

throat, because, as he left in writing, “he was tired of buttoning and

unbuttoning.” The occurrence of a loathsome but very curable disease in

a patient of mine, just when he was about to be married, induced him to

plunge among the breakers off Sullivan’s Island, on one of the coldest

days of our coldest winter. A Pole in New York wrote some verses just

before the act of self-destruction, implying that he was so weary of

uncertainty as to the truth of the various theories of the present and

future life, that he “had set out on a journey to the other world to

find out what he ought to believe in this.”

We are always interested in observing the conduct of brave men, who

exhibit a strongly-marked love of life, with little or no fear of death.

Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and Herault Sechelles, who commenced their

revolutionary career as reckless as they seemed ferocious, having

attained elevation, acquired wealth, and married beautiful women, became

merciful and prudent. Hunted in their turn by the bloodhounds of the

time, they made the most earnest endeavors to escape, but displayed a

noble courage in meeting their fate when inevitable.

It is a trite but true remark, that men will boldly face one mode of

death, and shrink timidly from another. A soldier, whom discipline will

lead without flinching “up to the imminent deadly breach,” will cower

before a sea-storm. Women, even in the act of suicide, dreading

explosion and blood, prefer poison and drowning. Men very often choose

firearms and cutting instruments, which habit has made familiar.

If the nervous or sensorial system escape lesion during the ravages of

disease, the conduct of the last hour will be apt to be consistent with

the previous character of the individual. Hobbes spoke gravely of death

as “a leap in the dark.” Hume talked lightly of Charon and his

ferry-boat. Voltaire made verses with his usual levity—

“Adieu, mes amis! adieu, la compagnie!

Dans deux heures d’ici, mon âme aneantie

Sera ce que je fus deux heures avant ma vie.”

Keats murmured, poetically, “I feel the flowers growing on my grave.”

Dr. Armstrong died prescribing for a patient; Lord Tenterden, uttering

the words “Gentlemen of the Jury, you will find;” General Lord Hill,

exclaiming “Horrid war!” Dr. Adams, of the Edinburgh High School, “It

grows dark; the boys may dismiss!” The last words of La Place were, “Ce

que nous connaissons est peu de chose; ce que nous ignorons, est

immense!”

The history of suicide, of death in battle, and of executions, is full

of such instances of consistent conduct and character. Madame Roland

desired to have pen and paper accorded to her, at the “Place de la

Guillotine,” that she might, as she phrased it, “set down the thoughts

that were rising in her mind.” Sir Thomas More jested pleasantly as he

mounted the scaffold. Thistlewood, the conspirator, a thoughtful man,

remarked to one of his fellow-sufferers that, “in five minutes more,

they would be in possession of the great secret.” When Madame de

Joulanges and her sisters were executed, they chanted together the Veni

Creator on their way from the prison to the fatal spot. Head after head

fell under the axe, but the celestial strain was prolonged until the

very last voice was hushed in the sudden silence of death.

The delirium of the moribund exhibits itself in diversified and often

contrasted manifestations. Symonds looks upon it as closely analogous to

the condition of the mind in dreaming. A popular and ancient error

deserves mention, only to be corrected; that the mind, at the near

approach of dissolution, becomes unusually clear, vigorous, and active.

“The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed,

Lets in new light through chinks which Time has made.”

Excitement of the uncontrolled imagination, as in dreams, and other

modes of delirium, is frequently mistaken for general mental energy;

some suggested association arouses trains of thought that have made deep

traces in the memory; scenes familiar in early childhood are vividly

described, and incidents long past recalled with striking minuteness.

All physicians know the difference familiarly presented in diseases,

some of which specifically occasion despondency and dejection of

spirits, while others render indifferent or even give rise to

exhilaration. The former constitute a class unhappily numerous. Cholera,

which at a distance excites terrors almost insane, is usually attended

with a careless stolidity, when it has laid its icy hand upon its

victim. The cheerful hopefulness of the consumptive patient is

proverbial; and in many instances of yellow fever, we find the moribund

patient confident of recovery. These are the exceptions, however; and we

cannot too often repeat that the religious prejudice which argues

unfavorably of the previous conduct and present character from the

closing scene of an agitating and painful illness, or from the last

words, uttered amidst bodily anguish and intellectual confusion, is

cruel and unreasonable, and ought to be loudly denounced. We can well

enough understand why an English Elizabeth, Virgin Queen, as history

labels her, could not lie still for a moment, agitated as she must have

been by a storm of remorseful recollections, nor restrain her shrieks of

horror long enough even to listen to a prayer. But how often does it

happen that “the wicked has no bands in his death;” and the awful

example of deep despair in the Stainless One, who cried out in his agony

that he was forsaken of God, should serve to deter us from the daily

repeated and shocking rashness of the decisions against which I am now

appealing.

Some minds have seemed firm enough, it is true, to maintain triumphantly

this last terrible struggle, and resist in a measure at least the

depressing influence of disease. Such instances cannot, however, be

numerous; and we should be prepared rather to sympathize with and make

all due allowance for human weakness. I have seen such moments of

yielding as it was deeply painful to witness, at the bedside of many of

the best of men, whose whole lives had been a course of consistent

goodness and piety, when warned of impending death, and called on to

make those preparations which custom has unfortunately led us to look

upon as gloomy landmarks at the entrance of the dark valley.

One of these, from youth to age a most esteemed and valued member of one

of our most fervent religious bodies, with sobs and tears, and loud

wailing, threw the pen and paper from him, exclaiming, over and over

again, “I will not—I cannot—I must not die.” Like the eccentric

Salvini, of whom Spence tells us that he died, crying out in a great

passion, “Je ne veux pas mourir, absolument;” and Lannes, the bravest of

Bonaparte’s marshals, when mortally wounded, struggled angrily and

fearfully, shouting with his last breath, “Save me, Napoleon!”

But I recoil from farther discussion of a topic so full of awe and

solemn interest, and conclude this prosaic “Thanatopsis” with the

Miltonian strain of Bryant, who terminates his noble poem, thus styled,

in language worthy of the best age and brightest laurel of our tongue:—

“So live, that, when thy summons comes to join

The innumerable caravan, that moves

To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take

His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not like the quarry slave at night,

Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed

By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,

Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.”

-----

[7] From Essays on Life, Sleep, Pain, etc., just published by Blanchard

& Lea, Philadelphia.

* * * * *

TO A FRIEND IN THE SPIRIT LAND.

BY L——, OF EASTFORD HERMITAGE.

Time passes wearily with me

Since thou hast joined the spirit throng;

I miss thy laugh that rang with glee—

The music of thy voice and song;

And though each day I meet bright eyes,

That look with tenderness on mine,

And cheeks that with the coral vies,

And tones that seem almost divine,

Still they can wake no gentle chord

To vibrate deeply in the heart;

For each bright glance and gentle word,

Must fail to charm while we’re apart.

Then speed thee, Time, upon thy way.

Swift on thy fleeting pinions soar;

And hasten on that blissful day,

When we shall meet to part no more.

* * * * *

THE PHILADELPHIA ART-UNION.

While other Art-Unions throughout the country are falling into

disrepute, that of Philadelphia seems to be rising in favor.

This cannot be owing to the absence of discouragements. Like all similar

institutions, it suffered severely from the pressure of the money-market

during the last six months of the year 1851. It found, in common with

others, that money was not forthcoming for the promotion of art, when it

commanded from one to two per cent. a month on ’change—that men could

not, or would not buy pictures, when they were obliged to strain every

nerve to save themselves from bankruptcy.

Besides the serious loss of revenue arising from this source, the

Philadelphia Art-Union lost by fire its two most valuable steel plates,

just at the moment when it was about to reap from them a golden harvest.

These splendid plates, “Mercy’s Dream,” and “Christiana and her Family,”

which had cost the society several thousand dollars, and which were

unquestionably among the most attractive prints ever issued in this

country, were entirely destroyed in the conflagration of Hart’s

buildings in this city.

It is not, therefore, mere good luck, nor the absence of discouraging

circumstances, that has given the Philadelphia Art-Union its present

condition of success. This success is based on the principles of its

organization, which differ materially from those of other kindred

associations.

In the first place, though located nominally in Philadelphia, and having

its Board of Managers here, it is really an Art-Union for every place

where it finds subscribers. Its prize-holders may select their prizes

from any gallery in the United States, or may order a picture from any

artist of their own selection. This puts it entirely out of the power of

the Board of Managers, even if they had the inclination, to exercise

favoritism toward any particular clique of artists, or to practice any

kind of fraud or trickery either in the purchase or the valuation of

pictures.

Secondly, and for the very reason just assigned, the Philadelphia

Art-Union enjoys in a high degree the confidence of the artists

themselves. They know by experience that its free gallery is the means

of selling a large number of pictures, besides those which are ordered

in consequence of the annual distributions. They know also that in order

to sell their pictures, or to obtain orders for painting, they have not

to cater to the fancies or caprices of a small clique of managers, but

to appeal to the public at large, depending solely upon the general

principles of their art. In other Art-Unions, the managers themselves

select and buy the pictures that are to be distributed as prizes. Hence

they are almost invariably regarded with jealousy by every artist who

does not receive from them an order—that is, by at least nine-tenths of

the whole body. The artist sees, however, that the Philadelphia

Art-Union does not admit of any favoritism of this kind. Its very plan

renders the thing impossible. If any particular artist finds that among

the prize-holders, no order or purchase has come to his studio, he may

see in it evidence perhaps that he has not pleased the public taste, but

no evidence of partiality in the Board of Managers. So far as their

operations are concerned, they give to all competitors “a fair field and

no favor”—and this is all that the artist asks.

That this view of the subject is the true one, and that the artists

themselves so view it, has been conclusively shown by their action on

the occasion of the losses of the institution by the late fire. The

artists of Philadelphia, on hearing of this disaster, called a meeting,

of their own accord, and passed a series of resolutions, approving in

the most unqualified manner both the plan and the management of the

institution, and agreeing severally to paint a picture of the value of

at least fifty dollars, and to present the same to the Art-Union.

Several other gentlemen, amateurs and patrons of art, stimulated by this

generosity, joined them in the enterprise, and already about fifty

valuable prizes have been thus guarantied.

It is obvious that they have entered upon this matter in a generous

spirit, with that animation and hearty good-will which spring naturally

from the circumstances. Every one at all conversant with art or artists,

knows how much the excellence of a picture, its very life and soul—all,

in fact, that distinguishes it as a work of art, or raises it above a

mere piece of mechanism—depends upon the feeling of the artist while

creating it. The noble enthusiasm with which the artists have entered

upon the present arrangement, is the best guaranty that the Art-Union

will have from each painter one of the happiest efforts of his

genius—something done under the direct influence of inspiration.

Indeed, we happen to know that several of our most eminent artists

intend to lay themselves out on this occasion—resolved to show what

artists are, and what they can do, for an institution which commands

their confidence.

Mr. Rothermel has signified his intention to paint a picture worth $500;

Mr. Paul Weber a landscape worth $500; Mr. A. Woodside a picture worth

$500; Mr. Scheussele a Scriptural subject worth $250; Mr. Sully a

picture worth $100; Mr. Joshua Shaw a landscape worth $75; and several

others have promised pictures at prices varying from $50 (the minimum)

to $75, $100, $150, etc. The names of the other artists and amateurs who

have offered original pictures of this description, are Rembrandt Peale,

James Hamilton, Isaac L. Williams, Wm. A. K. Martin, Wm. F. Jones, Wm.

E. Winner, Leo. Elliot, F. de Bourg Richards, George C. White, John

Wiser, J. K. Trego, George W. Holmes, Geo. W. Conarroe, John Sartain,

Alex. Lawrie, Jr., Samuel Sartain, G. R. Bonfield, S. B. Waugh, W. T.

Richards, Aaron Stein, R. A Clarke, W. Sanford Mason, J. R. Lambdin, G.

C. Lambdin, J. Wilson, May Stevenson, I. W. Moore, T. H. Glessing, W. H.

Wilcox, Thomas A. Andrews, George F. Meeser, James S. Earle, Edward F.

Dennison, George W. Dewey, James L. Claghorn. Others will, no doubt, be

added to the list.

About fifty splendid original works of art, ranging in value from $50 to

$500 each, have thus been placed absolutely at the disposal of the Board

of Managers, and have been by them specifically pledged to the

subscribers at the next distribution.

Besides this, Mr. Rothermel has just finished for the Art-Union a great

historical painting of Patrick Henry making his celebrated revolutionary

speech before the Virginia House of Burgesses. This picture is

undoubtedly Mr. Rothermel’s master-piece. He has thrown into it all the

fire of his genius, all the ardor of his patriotism, all the

accumulations of his knowledge and skill as one of the practiced and

leading historical painters of the day.

The historical scene which Mr. Rothermel has commemorated in this

painting is the passage of Patrick Henry’s resolutions on the Stamp Act

in the House of Burgesses, in the year 1765. The passage of these

resolutions was the first bold note of defiance that was uttered on this

side of the Atlantic. The manner in which they were carried through the

House is thus described by his biographer:

“It was, indeed, the measure which raised him [Mr. Henry] to the zenith

of his glory. He had never before had a subject which entirely matched

his genius, and was capable of drawing out all the powers of his mind.

It was remarked of him, throughout his life, that his talents never

failed to rise with the occasion, and in proportion with the resistance

which he had to encounter. The nicety of the vote, on the last

resolution, proves that this was not a time to hold in reserve any part

of his forces. It was, indeed, an Alpine passage, under circumstances

even more unpropitious than those of Hannibal; for he had not only to

fight, hand to hand, the powerful party who were already in possession

of the heights, but at the same instant to cheer and animate the timid

band of followers, that were trembling, and fainting, and drawing back

below him. It was an occasion that called upon him to put forth all his

strength; and he did put it forth, in such a manner as man never did

before. The cords of argument with which his adversaries frequently

flattered themselves that they had bound him fast, became packthreads in

his hands. He burst them with as much ease as the unshorn Samson did the

bands of the Philistines. He seized the pillars of the temple, shook

them terribly, and seemed to threaten his opponents with ruin. It was an

incessant storm of lightning and thunder, which struck them aghast. The

faint-hearted gathered courage from his countenance, and cowards became

heroes while they gazed upon his exploits. It was in the midst of this

magnificent debate, while he was descanting on the tyranny of the

obnoxious act, that he exclaimed in a voice of thunder, and with the

look of a god, ‘Cæsar had his Brutus—Charles the First his

Cromwell—and George the Third—’ ‘Treason!’ cried the Speaker.

‘Treason! treason!’ echoed from every part of the house. It was one of

those trying moments which is decisive of character. Henry faltered not

for an instant; but rising to a loftier attitude, and fixing on the

Speaker an eye of the most determined fire, he finished his sentence

with the firmest emphasis—‘_may profit by their example_. If _this_ be

treason—make the most of it!’”

The exact moment of time which Mr. Rothermel has seized for his

painting, is when the last words which we have quoted, (“_If this be

treason—make the most of it!_”) are dying away upon the ear. The

impassioned orator stands erect and self-possessed, his open hand aloft,

as though a thunder-bolt had just passed from his fingers, and his eye

were quietly awaiting the issue, in the conscious strength of a Jupiter

Tonans.

Foremost in the foregoing is Richard Henry Lee. Lee sees, by a sort of

prophetic intuition, the full import of this inspired oratory. His very

face, under the magic of Mr. Rothermel’s genius, is a long perspective

of war, desolation, heroic deeds, and the thick-coming glories of

ultimate civic and religious liberty.

Peyton Randolph, also in the foreground, is a most striking figure. So

is Pendleton, so is Wythe, so is Speaker Robinson. Indeed, every inch of

canvas tells its story. The spectator, who knew nothing of the scene or

of its actors, would instantly and involuntarily become conscious that

he was present at some great world-renowned action.

But in dwelling upon this fascinating topic, we have been unconsciously

carried away from our main point. This great painting, which was

executed by Mr. Rothermel for the Art-Union, at the price of one

thousand dollars, but which, by its extraordinary excellence, has

already acquired a market value far beyond that sum, _is to be drawn for

among the other prizes at the next annual distribution_.

Every subscriber, moreover, secures for himself a copy of the engraving

of this great picture, which the Managers have contracted for in a style

of surpassing beauty. The picture itself, and the engraving of it, will

form an era in the history of American art, as the subject itself did in

the history of American Independence.

Besides this, all the money obtained from the subscribers, after paying

for the engraving and other incidental expenses, is to be distributed,

as heretofore, in money-prizes for the purchase of other works of art,

at the option of the prize-holders.

Of the general beneficial influence of Art-Unions, at least of those

conducted on the plan of that in Philadelphia, we have not the shadow of

a doubt. We are happy, however, to quote a couple of passages quite in

point. The first is from the _North British Review_.

“We believe that by a judicious distribution of engravings more may be

done for the culture of the public taste than by any other means

whatsoever. One thoroughly good engraving, fairly established and

domiciled in a house, will do more for the inmates in this respect, than

a hundred visits to a hundred galleries of pictures. It is a teacher of

form, a lecturer on the beautiful, a continually present artistic

influence. Nor do we see any reason why the same system should not be

extended to casts, which might be taken either after the antique, or

some thoroughly good modern sculptor, such as Thorwarldsen. If such a

system were carried out, matters might soon be brought to a state in

which there should scarcely be any family which did not possess within

its own walls the means of forming a taste, and that a genuine and a

high one, both in painting and sculpture.”

The second passage is still more to the point. It is from our

contemporary, the _Saturday Courier_.

“This Institution, [The Philadelphia Art-Union,] by its Free Gallery,

and by its being a centre of action for artists and amateurs, is

continually operating in a silent but most perceptible manner upon

public taste. Every visit to the Free Gallery, every picture sold from

its walls, every picture which it is the means of calling into

existence, every print which it sends abroad into the community, is so

much done toward the promotion of a popular taste for what is refined

and elegant, and a consequent _dis_taste for what is coarse, illiberal,

and depraved. Every man in the community has on interest—not merely a

moral, but a pecuniary interest—in the promotion of a popular taste for

the Fine Arts. It is a part of the moral education of society, which,

like all other good popular education, adds at once to the value and the

safety of every man’s property.”

* * * * *

REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

_Lectures on the History of France. By the Right Honorable Sir

James Stephen, K. C. B., LL. D.; Professor of Modern History in

the University of Cambridge. New York: Harper & Brother. 1 vol.

8vo._

Sir James Stephen is the writer of a number of essays in the Edinburgh

Review, which, at the time they appeared, were mistaken by some readers

as the productions of Macaulay. There were no real grounds for such a

supposition, as Stephen’s mind has hardly a single quality in common

with Macaulay’s, and the resemblance of his style to that of the

historian of the Revolution is of a very superficial kind. Stephen, like

Macaulay, is a writer of clear, clean, short, compact sentences, and

deals largely in historical allusions, parallels and generalizations,

but his diction has none of Macaulay’s rapid movement, and his knowledge

betrays little of Macaulay’s “joyous memory.” Stephen’s mind is large

and rich in acquired information, but it is deficient in passion, and

its ordinary movement is languid, without any of Macaulay’s intellectual

fierceness, eagerness and swift sweep of illustration and

generalization, and without any of Macaulay’s bitterness, partizanship

and scorn of amiable emotions. Stephen, indeed, if he be a mimic, mimics

Mackintosh rather than Macaulay, and in charity, in intellectual

conscientiousness, in courtesy to opponents, in all the benignities and

amenities of scholarship, and also in a certain faint hold upon large

acquisitions, he sometimes resembles without at all equaling him. The

reader is continually impressed with his honesty and benevolence, with

his continual clearness and occasional reach of view, and with his

graceful mastery of the resources of expression; but to continuous vigor

and vividness of conception and language he has no claim.

The present volume, a large octavo of some seven hundred pages, is

evidently the work of much thought, research and time, though the author

regrets that he was compelled to prepare his lectures without adequate

preparation. They were delivered at the University of Cambridge, Stephen

occupying in that institution the professorship of history. He

succeeded, we believe, William Smythe, a dry, hard and pedantic, though

well read professor, whose lectures on history and on the French

Revolution are the most uninteresting of useful books. Stephen is almost

his equal in historical knowledge, and his superior in the graces of

style and in the power of making his knowledge attractive. His work,

indeed, though it can hardly give him the reputation of a great

historian, is altogether the best view of French history in the English

language, and is an invaluable guide to all who wish to gain a thorough

acquaintance with France in her historical development. It gives the

causes of the decline and fall of the various dynasties of her

government, the character of her feudal system, the steps by which her

government became an absolute monarchy, and the differences between the

absolute monarchy of Henry IV. and Louis XIV. The lectures on the

anti-feudal influence of the municipalities, of the Eastern Crusades, of

the Albigensian Crusades—the masterly view of the position occupied by

the Parliaments, the Privileged Orders and the States General, in

relation to the Monarchy of France—and the expositions of the sources

and management of the revenues of the nation, are all eminently lucid

and valuable, and without any of the ostentatious brilliancy and

paradoxical generalization which are apt to characterize the French

historical school, are really modest contributions to the philosophy of

history.

Sir James Stephen, in the course of his narration and dissertations,

furnishes us with some elaborate delineations of character. That of

Cardinal Richelieu is especially good. After saying of him that he was

not so much minister as dictator, not so much the agent as the

depositary of the royal power, he adds that, “a king in all things but

the name, he reigned with that exemption from hereditary and domestic

influences which has so often imparted to the Papal monarchs a kind of

preterhuman energy, and has so often taught the world to deprecate the

celibacy of the throne.” His character, as a despotic innovator, is also

finely sketched. “Richelieu was the heir of the designs of Henry IV. and

ancestor to those of Louis XIV. But they courted, and were sustained by,

the applause and the attachment of their subjects. He passed his life in

one unintermitted struggle with each, in turn, of the powerful bodies

over which he ruled. By a long series of well-directed blows, he crushed

forever the political and military strength of the Huguenots. By his

strong hand the sovereign courts were confined to their judicial duties,

and their claims to participate in the government of the state were

scattered to the winds. Trampling under foot all rules of judicial

procedure and the clearest principles of justice, he brought to the

scaffold one after another of the proudest nobles of France, by

sentences dictated by himself to extraordinary judges of his own

selection; thus teaching the doctrine of social equality by lessons too

impressive to be misinterpreted or forgotten by any later generation.

Both the privileges, in exchange for which the greater fiefs had

exchanged their independence, and the franchises, the conquest of which

the cities, in earlier times, had successfully contended, were alike

swept away by this remorseless innovator. He exiled the mother,

oppressed the wife, degraded the brother, banished the confessor, and

put to death the kinsmen and favorites of the king, and compelled the

king himself to be the instrument of these domestic severities. Though

surrounded by enemies and by rivals, his power ended only with his life.

Though beset by assassins, he died in the ordinary course of nature.

Though he had waded to dominion through slaughter, cruelty and wrong, he

passed to his great account amid the applause of the people and the

benedictions of the church; and, as far as any human eye could see, in

hope, in tranquillity and in peace. What, then, is the reason why so

tumultuous a career reached at length so serene a close? The reason is,

that amid all his conflicts Richelieu wisely and successfully maintained

three powerful alliances. He cultivated the attachment of men of

letters, the favor of the commons, and the sympathy of all French

idolaters of the national glory.”

In some admirable lectures on the Power of the Pen in France, Stephen

gives fine portraits of Rabelais, Montaigne, Calvin and Pascal. One

remark about Calvin struck us as especially felicitous. Speaking of him

as writing his great work in Geneva, he says—“The beautiful lake of

that city, and the mountains which encircle it, lay before his eyes as

he wrote; but they are said to have suggested to his fancy no images,

and to have drawn from his pen not so much as one transient allusion.

With his mental vision ever directed to that melancholy view of the

state and prospects of our race which he had discovered in the Book of

Life, it would, indeed, have been incongruous to have turned aside to

depict any of those glorious aspects of the creative benignity which

were spread around him in the Book of Nature.”

The most valuable chapters in the volume are perhaps those which relate

to the character and government of Louis XIV. The absolute monarchy

established by him is thoroughly analyzed. Among many curious

illustrations of that tyranny and perfidy which this great master of

king-craft systematized into a science, Stephen translates from his

“Memoires Historiques” a series of maxims, addressed to the Dauphin, for

his guidance whenever he should be called upon to wear the crown of

France. Louis’s celebrated aphorism, “I am the state,” is in these

precious morsels of absolutism expanded into a rule of conduct. We quote

a few of them, as, to republican ears, they may have the effect of

witticisms:

“It is the will of Heaven, who has given kings to man, that they should

be revered as his vice-regents, he having reserved to himself alone the

right to scrutinize their conduct.”

“It is the will of God that every subject should yield to his sovereign

on implicit obedience.”

“The worst calamity which can befall any one of our rank is to be

reduced to that subjection, in which the monarch is obliged to receive

the law from his people.”

“It is the essential vice of the English monarchy that the king can make

no extraordinary levies of men or money without the consent of the

Parliament, nor convene the Parliament without impairing his own

authority.”

“All property within our realm belongs to us in virtue of the same

title. The funds actually deposited in our treasury, the funds in the

hands of the revenue officers, _and the funds which we allow our people

to employ in their various occupations_, are all _equally_ subject to

our control.”

“Be assured that kings are absolute lords, who may fitly and freely

dispose of all property in the possession either of churchmen or of

laymen, though they are bound always to employ it as faithful stewards.”

“Since the lives of his subjects belong to the prince, he is obliged to

be solicitous for the preservation of them.”

“The first basis of all other reforms was the rendering my own will

properly absolute.”

Some of his remarks on treaties, from the same volume, convey a fair

impression of the king’s good faith to his allies. All mankind knows

that he was in conduct a measureless liar and trickster, and that no

treaty could hold him; but it is not perhaps generally known that he

generalized perfidy into a principle, and had no conception that in so

doing he was violating any moral or religious duty. He thus solemnly

instructs the dauphin—

“In dispensing with the exact observance of treaties, we do not violate

them; for the language of such instruments is not to be understood

literally. We must employ in our treaties a conventional phraseology,

just as we use complimentary expressions in society. They are

indispensable in our intercourse with one another, but they always mean

much less than they say. The more unusual, circumspect and reiterated

were the clauses by which the Spaniards excluded me from assisting

Portugal, the more evident it is that the Spaniards did not believe that

I should really withhold such assistance.”

* * * * *

_The Podesta’s Daughter, and other Miscellaneous Poems. By

George H. Boker. Author of “Calaynos,” “Anne Boleyn,” “The

Betrothal,” etc. Philadelphia: A. Hart._

Mr. Boker is ever a welcome visitant among the regions of literature.

The present volume is understood to be composed of those lighter efforts

of his muse which have engaged his attention at intervals between the

composition of his larger works, “Calaynos,” “Anne Boleyn” and “The

Betrothal.” Some of these minor poems have already seen the light, under

the auspices of our leading magazines; but by far the greater part of

the book is fresh, and all of it bears evidence of that genuine

inspiration, and that high finish, without which the author never

appears before the reading public.

“The Podesta’s Daughter” is an Italian tale or legend, thrown into that

dramatic form for which Mr. Boker has shown such a remarkable gift. The

story is very briefly this. A lowly maiden is loved and wooed by one far

above her in life, a son of the neighboring duke. The father and brother

of the maid, believing the high-born youth to be merely selfish and

insidious in his offers of love and marriage, seek to rescue her from

what appears to them a fatal snare, and persuade her to reject his

addresses and even pretend to be affianced to another, a country hind in

her own walk in life. The young and uncalculating noble, stung to the

quick by her apparent preference of a rival so utterly unworthy of him

and of her, suddenly abandoned his home and castle, and engaged during

all the prime and meridian of his days in distant foreign wars. In the

evening of life he returns, alone and almost a stranger, to the scenes

of his youth. On approaching his castle, he falls in with an old man,

the “Podesta,” by whom he is not recognized. In the dialogue between

them, the Podesta, being questioned by the apparent stranger, tells the

story of himself and family, and especially of his “daughter,” by whose

untimely grave they are standing. She died of a broken heart, after the

abrupt departure of the young duke, years ago. It is the old story. True

love, not left to its native instincts, but thwarted and driven devious

by the manœuvres of the suspicious. Though Italian in manners, and

dramatic in form, it is a true story of the heart. It is told with

infinite skill, and must win for its author a bright addition to the

chaplet which already surrounds his brow.

The first scene in the “Podesta’s Daughter,” is a good instance of the

quiet ease with which Mr. Boker makes an actor bring out the points of a

story, so that the reader is at once posted up to the very moment of

action.

SCENE—_Before and within the gate of an Italian Churchyard.

Enter (as if from the wars,)_ Duke Odo, Vincenzo, _and a train

of men-at-arms_.

_Duke Odo (dismounting.)_

Hark you, Vincenzo; here will I dismount.

Lead on Falcone to the castle. See

He lack no provender or barley-straw

To ease his battered sides. Poor war-worn horse!

When last we galloped past this church-yard gate,

He was a colt, gamesome and hot of blood,

Bearing against the bit until my arm

Ached with his humors. Mark the old jade now—

He knows we talk about him—a mere boy

Might ride him bare-back. Give my people note

Of my approach, and tell them, for yourself,

I will not look too strictly at my house:

An absent lord trains careless servitors.

I wish no bonfires lighted on the hills,

No peaceful cannon roused to mimic wrath;

Say, I have seen cities burn, and shouting ranks

Of solid steel-clad footmen melt away

Before a hundred pieces. Say I come for rest,

Not jollity; and all I seek

Is a calm welcome in their lighted eyes,

And quiet murmurs that appear to come

During its whole progress, Death is making gradual encroachments upon