fighting." Then followed intense earnest prayers, which were his habit
when alone. His warfare was accomplished; he had fought the good fight;
and, on one of his last nights on earth, his daughter heard him exclaim,
"How beautiful God is!" The last morning, at five o'clock, just after
his eldest daughter and his physician, who had sat up all night, had
left him, and he thought himself alone, he was heard, in a clear voice,
repeating the Burial Service. He turned on his side after this, and
never spoke again.
_"Letters and Memoirs of Charles Kingsley," by his wife._
KLOPSTOCK (Friedrich Gottlieb), 1724-1803. He died reciting his own
beautiful verses, descriptive of the death of Mary, the sister of
Lazarus. The Song of Mary was sung at the public funeral of the poet.
KNOX (John, Scotch reformer), 1505-1572. "_Now it is come._" Some give
his last words thus: "Live in Christ, live in Christ, and the flesh need
not fear death."
LABEDOYERE (Charles Angelique Huchet de, Count and French general "noted
for graceful manners and chivalrous spirit." He was charged with
treason, rebellion and military seduction, and was executed as one of
the "authors and instigators of the horrible plot which had brought back
Buonaparte"), 1786-1815. "_Above all do not miss me!_"
At half past six in the evening Labedoyere was escorted to the plain of
Grenelle by a strong detachment of _gen d'armerie_. On arriving at the
place of execution, he knelt down and received the benediction of the
confessor who accompanied him. He then rose, and, without waiting for
his eyes to be bandaged, uncovered his breast to the veterans who were
to shoot him, and exclaimed, "Above all do not miss me!" In a moment
after he was no more.
_Christopher Kelly: "The Battle of Waterloo."_
LACORDAIRE (Jean Baptiste Henri, French ecclesiastic celebrated for his
funeral orations), 1802-1861. "_Open to me, O God!_"
LA HARPE or LAHARPE DE (Jean Francois, French critic and dramatist),
1739-1803. "_I am grateful to Divine Mercy for having left me sufficient
recollection to feel how consoling these prayers are to the dying._"
These are his last recorded words, and refer to the prayers for the sick
to which he was attending, but later he conversed with M. Fontanes, and
did not die until the next day.
LAMBERT (John, English teacher of languages who suffered as a martyr.
His true name was Nicholson, but he changed it for greater safety in
time of persecution),--1538. "_None but Christ! none but Christ!_"
After his legs were consumed to the stumps, two inhuman monsters who
stood on each side of him pierced him with their halberds, and lifted
him up as far as the chain which fastened him to the stake would reach,
while he raised his half consumed hands dripping with blood and fire,
and said, "None but Christ! none but Christ!"
LATIMER (Hugh, early English reformer and martyr), about 1472-1555.
"_Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day
light such a candle by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never
be put out._"
Latimer and Ridley suffered martyrdom at Oxford at the same time,
October 16, 1555.
LAUD (William, Archbishop of Canterbury and favorite minister of Charles
I.), 1573-1645. "_Lord, receive my soul_," spoken to the headsman as a
signal to strike. According to some authorities his last words were: "I
am coming, O! Lord, as quickly as I can. I know I must pass through
death before I can come to Thee, but it is only a mere shadow--a little
darkness upon nature. Thou hast broken the jaws of death."
Laud was declared guilty of treason, and executed on Tower Hill, January
10, 1645.
LAURENTIUS ("Saint," a deacon of Rome who was roasted alive on a
gridiron before a slow fire), about A. D. 258. "_Assatus est; jam versa
et manduca_" (I am roasted,--now turn me, and eat me.) According to some
authorities he said later: "I thank thee, O my God and Saviour, that I
have been found worthy to enter into thy beatitude."
LEE (Robert Edmund, distinguished Confederate general, and President of
Washington College, at Lexington, Virginia), 1806-1870. "_Tell Hill he
must come up._" During his last hours his mind wandered, and he was
living over again in his disordered imagination the military campaign
through which he had passed.
His body lies in the mausoleum erected at the rear of the College
chapel, and beside him are laid his wife and his daughter Agnes. Above
the tomb, and visible from the chapel hall, is Valentine's recumbent
marble figure of Lee the soldier taking his rest, with his sword
sheathed at his side and his martial cloak around him.--_White._
LEO X. (Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, elected Pope March 11, 1513),
1475-1521. "_I have been murdered; no remedy can prevent my speedy
death._" It is believed that he was poisoned.
The circumstances attending the death of the pontiff are involved in
mysterious and total obscurity, and the accounts given of this event by
Varillas and similar writers in subsequent times, are the spurious
offspring of their own imagination.
_Roscoe "Life of Leo the Tenth."_
Leo X. expired upon the 1st day of December, 1521. The vacillating game
he played in European politics had just been crowned with momentary
success. Some folk believed that the Pope died of joy after hearing that
his Imperial allies had entered the town of Milan; others thought that
he succumbed to poison. We do not know what caused his death. But the
unsoundness of his constitution, overtaxed by dissipation and generous
living, in the midst of public cares for which the man had hardly nerve
enough, may suffice to account for a decease certainly sudden and
premature.
_Symond: "Life of Michelangelo Buonarotti."_
LIEBER (Francis, German author, political refugee, and, later, Professor
of History and Political Science in Columbia College, New York),
1800-1872.
On the afternoon of the 2nd of October, 1872, he was sitting quietly,
listening to his wife, who was reading aloud to him as was her custom,
when he gave one cry and immediately died.[27]
_Perry's "Life and Letters of Lieber."_
[27] It has been thought that Lieber's death was occasioned by
rupture of the heart. See the last words of Charles Sumner and the
foot note on his sudden death. See also the last words of John
Palmer and the account of his death appended from the Annual
Register.
LINDSEY (Theophilus, English Unitarian clergyman), 1723-1808. "_No,
whatever is, is best_,"--said to a friend who suggested that his
fortitude sprang from his recollection of the maxim, "Whatever is, is
right."
LIGNE (Charles Joseph, Prince de, "The Friend of Kings," author of
"Commentaries on the Art of War." He was a brave and good soldier, but
a great beau and dandy), 1734-1814. "_Back, thou accursed phantom!_" As
he felt the approach of death he sprang from a recumbent to a sitting
posture, and ordered the door to be closed; but finding that he could
not prevent the last great enemy from entering, he gave the phantom
battle; and in the midst of the conflict he threw up his arms and cried,
"Back thou accursed phantom!" In a moment he was dead.
At seventy-two he was still a fop and still a gallant. "His delicately
malicious and gayly ironic wit," wrote Count Ouvaroff, who knew him only
in old age, "was allied with a sweetness of character and an equality of
temper that were unparalleled." "Gravity only was distasteful to him,
and he would always turn the conversation with a word or a nod from too
serious a topic. His pride was flattered by the eagerness wherewith the
curious pointed their finger at him in the street, and he was yet
anxious to attract the attention which was his due. He would walk abroad
in the Field Marshal's cloak, which became his youthful figure, or,
still more splendid, he would drive in his gray coach, whose white
horses were the wonder of all Vienna. His happiness had suffered no
eclipse; his talk was as marvelous as when he astonished the Court of
Versailles, and not even his wrinkles obscured the dazzle of his smile.
The best of life had been his, and he waited the end in placid content,
and it is in his triumph in Vienna, rather than in his cumbrous books,
that you catch the last glimpse of the Prince de Ligne."
_Charles Whibley: "The Pageantry of Life."_
LIPPARD (George, American author), 1822-1854. "_Is this death?_" to his
physician.
Lippard wrote a number of sensational novels, and a book on "Washington
and his Generals." He was the founder of the once strong and useful
Brotherhood of the Union, a secret charitable institution.
LISLE (Sir George, English royalist officer, taken prisoner at
Colchester, where he was put to death August 29th, 1648),--1648. "_I
have been nearer to you when you have missed me_," said to a soldier of
the squad appointed to shoot him, and who had, to Sir George Lisle's
request that he would not miss or merely wound him, replied, "I'll
warrant, sir, we will hit you." Lisle thought the distance between
himself and the firing party was too great and he wished the soldiers to
come nearer to him.
Fairfax sullied his victory by an act of great cruelty. In a council of
war, it was resolved that Sir Charles Lucas, Sir George Lisle, and Sir
Bernard Gascoign, the governors of Colchester, should be put to death:
but the life of Gascoign was spared, on account of his being a
foreigner. When the other two were brought out to be shot, Lucas gave
the word to fire, as if he had been at the head of his own company.
Lisle kissed him eagerly after he was dead; and desired the executioners
to come nearer.--_The Percy Anecdotes._
LIVINGSTONE (David, distinguished missionary, traveler and discoverer),
1813-1873. His last words, which are not recorded, were about
Chilanebo's village, in Ilala, and the neighboring country, and
especially about the Luapula. His mind wandered, and the questions were
often disconnected and indistinct, but his last thoughts were of Africa.
His attendants constructed for him a rude hut, and when it was completed
they took him into it and laid him upon a rough bed--the best they could
procure. He spoke only once or twice during the night. Next day he lay
undisturbed. He asked a few wandering questions about the
country--especially about the Luapula. His people knew that the end
could not be far off. Nothing occurred to attract notice during the
early part of the night, but at four in the morning, the boy who lay at
his door called in alarm for Susi, fearing that their master was dead.
By the candle still burning they saw him, not in bed, but kneeling at
the bedside with his head buried in his hands upon the pillow. The sad
yet not unexpected truth soon became evident: he had passed away on the
furthest of all his journeys, and without a single attendant. But he had
died in the act of prayer--prayer offered in that reverential attitude
about which he was always so particular; commending his own spirit,
with all his dear ones, as was his wont, into the hands of his Saviour;
and commending AFRICA--his own dear Africa--with all her woes and sins
and wrongs, to the Avenger of the oppressed and the Redeemer of the
lost.
So soon as the death of Livingstone was known to his men, they resolved
to carry their master's remains to Zanzibar. Arrangements were made for
drying and embalming the body, after removing the heart and other
viscera. For fourteen days the body was dried in the sun. After being
wrapped in calico, and the legs bent inward at the knees, it was
enclosed in a large piece of bark from a Myonga tree in the form of a
cylinder; over this a piece of sail-cloth was sewed; and the package was
lashed to a pole, so as to be carried by two men. Jacob Wainwright
carved an inscription on the Moula tree under which the body had rested,
and where the heart was buried, and Chitambo was charged to keep the
grass cleared away, and to protect two posts and a cross-piece which
they erected to mark the spot.
The remains were brought to Aden on board the "Calcutta," and thereafter
transferred to the steamer "Malwa," which arrived at Southampton on the
15th of April. Mr. Thomas Livingstone, eldest surviving son of the
Doctor, being then in Egypt on account of his health, had gone on board
at Alexandria. The body was conveyed to London by special train and
deposited in the rooms of the Geographical Society in Saville Row.
In the course of the evening the remains were examined by Sir William
Fergusson and several other medical gentlemen, including Dr. Loudon, of
Hamilton, whose professional skill and great kindness to his family had
gained for him a high place in the esteem and love of Livingstone. To
many persons it had appeared so incredible that the remains should have
been brought from the heart of Africa to London, that some conclusive
identification of the body seemed to be necessary to set all doubt at
rest. The state of the arm, the one that had been broken by the lion,
supplied the crucial evidence. "Exactly in the region of the attachment
of the deltoid to the humerus" (wrote Sir William Fergusson in a
contribution to the _Lancet_, April 18, 1874), "there were the
indications of an oblique fracture. On moving the arm there were the
indications of an ununited fracture. A closer identification and
dissection displayed the false joint that had so long ago been so well
recognized by those who had examined the arm in former days.... The
first glance set my mind at rest, and that, with further examination,
made me as positive as to the identification of these remains as that
there has been among us in modern times one of the greatest men of the
human race--David Livingstone."
The black slab that now marks the resting-place of Livingstone in
Westminster Abbey bears this inscription:
BROUGHT BY FAITHFUL HANDS
OVER LAND AND SEA,
HERE RESTS
DAVID LIVINGSTONE,
MISSIONARY, TRAVELER, PHILANTHROPIST,
BORN MARCH 19, 1813,
AT BLANTYRE, LANARKSHIRE.
DIED MAY 4,[28] 1873,
AT CHITAMBO'S VILLAGE, ILALA.
For thirty years his life was spent in an unwearied effort to
evangelize the native races, to explore the undiscovered secrets,
and abolish the desolating slave-trade of Central Africa, and where,
with his last words he wrote: "All I can say in my solitude is, may
Heaven's rich blessing come down on every one--American, English,
Turk--who will help to heal this open sore of the world."
Along the right border of the stone are the words:
TANTUS AMOR VERI, NIHIL EST QUOD NOSCERE MALIM
QUAM FLUVII CAUSAS PER SAECULA TANTA LATENTES.
And along the left border:
OTHER SHEEP I HAVE WHICH ARE NOT OF THIS FOLD,
THEM ALSO I MUST BRING, AND THEY SHALL HEAR MY VOICE.
_Blaikie's "Personal Life of Livingstone."_
The late E. J. Glane, who crossed Africa in the interest of _The
Century_, makes the following entry in his journal:
July 9. To-day I revisited the tree where Livingstone died, and in
order to guide others to the exact spot, in case this tree should
disappear from any cause, I selected another big tree likely to last
many years, cleared away two and a half square feet of its bark, and in
the space marked as follows: "This tree is magnetic southwest of the
tree where Livingstone's remains are buried, and is forty-five paces
from it." I brought away a bit of the bark of the memorable tree--a dead
part, so as not to be guilty of vandalism.[29]
Livingstone's grave is in a quiet nook, such as he himself desired, in
the outskirts of a forest bordering on a grass plain where the roan buck
and eland roam in safety. When I visited the place turtle-doves were
cooing in the tree-tops, and a litter of young hyenas had been playing
near by; in the low ground outside the hole leading to the cave were
their recent tracks; they had scampered into safety at our approach.
[28] In the _Last Journals_ the date is May 1st; on the stone, May
4th. The attendants could not quite determine the day.
[29] The section of the tree containing the inscription made by
Jacob Wainwright has been brought to England and deposited in the
house of the Geographical Society.
LOCKE (John, author of the celebrated "Essay Concerning the Human
Understanding"), 1632-1704. "_O, the depth of the riches of the goodness
and knowledge of God!_"
Some authorities say his last words were, "Cease now;" to Lady Masham
who was reading to him a Psalm of David.
LONGFELLOW (Henry Wadsworth), 1807-1882. "_Now I know that I must be
very ill, since you have been sent for_," said to his sister who came
from Portland, Me.
His last written lines (nine days before his death) were:
"Out of the shadows of night,
The world rolls into light;
It is daybreak everywhere."
--_The Bells of San Blas._
LOUIS I. (Louis le Debonnaire), 778-840. "_Huz! huz!_"
He turned his face to the wall and twice cried, "Huz! huz!" ("Out!
out!") and then died.
_Bouquet._
LOUIS IX. ("Saint Louis," canonized by Pope Boniface VIII. in 1297),
1215-1270. "_I will enter now into the house of the Lord._"
Some authorities say his last words were "We will go to Jerusalem."
LOUIS XIII. (son of Henry IV. and Marie de Medicis), 1601-1643. "_Well,
my God, I consent with all my heart_," to his physician who told him he
had but two hours to live.
LOUIS XIV. (surnamed LE GRAND, often called LOUIS QUATORZE, the most
magnificent of the Bourbon Kings), 1638-1715. "Why weep ye? Did you
think I should live forever?" then after a pause, "_I thought dying had
been harder._" Some say his last words were: "O God, come to mine aid! O
Lord, make haste to help me!"
On Sunday, August 31, towards eleven o'clock in the evening, the prayers
for the dying were said for Louis XIV. He recited them himself in a
louder voice than any of the spectators; and seemed still more majestic
on his death-bed than on his throne. When the prayers were ended he
recognized Cardinal de Rohan and said to him, "These are the graces of
the Church." Several times he repeated: "_Nunc et in hora mortis._" Then
he said, "O God, come unto mine aid; O Lord, make haste to help me."
These were his last words. The agony was beginning. It lasted all night,
and on Sunday, September 1, 1715, at a quarter past eight in the
morning, Louis XIV., aged seventy-seven years lacking three days, during
sixty-two of which he had been a king, yielded his great soul to God.
_Imbert de Saint-Amand._
LOUIS XV. (of France), 1710-1774. "_Repeat those words Monsieur the
almoner, repeat them_," to Cardinal de La Roche-Aymon, who read aloud
the public apology made by the sovereign to his people.
Some authorities give his last words thus: "I have been a great sinner,
doubtless, but I have ever observed Lent with a most scrupulous
exactness; I have caused more than a hundred thousand masses to be said
for the repose of unhappy souls, so that I flatter myself I have not
been a very bad Christian."
A candle burning in the King's chamber, which was to be extinguished at
the same moment as the life of the King, was the signal agreed on for
the measures to be taken and the orders to be given as soon as he should
have breathed his last. The candle was put out at two o'clock in the
afternoon of May 10, 1774. Instantly a great tumult, comparable to a
clap of thunder, shook the arches of Versailles. It was the crowd of
courtiers leaving the antechambers of the dead man and noisily hastening
to meet the new monarch.
_Imbert de Saint-Amand: "The Last Years of Louis XV."_
LOUIS XVI. (guillotined by a wild and bloodthirsty mob, called the
French Republic, the 21st of January, 1793), 1754-1793. "_Frenchmen, I
die innocent of all the crimes which have been imputed to me. I forgive
my enemies; I implore God, from the bottom of my heart, to pardon them,
and not to take vengeance on the French nation for the blood about to be
shed._"
He was proceeding, when Santerre, who was on horseback near the
scaffold, made a signal for the drums to beat, when the assistants
seized the victim, and the horrid murder was completed.
When the king's head was severed from the body, one of the executioners
held it up by the hair, dancing at the same time around the scaffold,
with the most savage exultation.
_Contemporary History of the French Revolution._
LOUIS XVII. (second son of Louis XVI. He became dauphin at the death of
an elder brother in 1789, and was recognized as king in January, 1793,
by the French royalists and several foreign courts, but he was closely
confined by the Jacobins. The cruel treatment which he received in
prison hastened his death), 1785-1795. "_I have something to tell you._"
LOUIS XVIII. (Louis Stanislas Xavier), 1755-1824. "_A King should die
standing._"
LOUISE (Auguste Wilhelmine Amelie, Queen of Prussia), 1776-1810. "_I am
a Queen, but have no power to move my arms._"
LOVAT (Lord Fraser of Lovat, Scottish Jacobite conspirator. In the
rebellion of 1745 he was detected in treasonable acts against King
George, for which he was executed), about 1666-1747.
He was beheaded on Tower Hill. On reaching the scaffold, he asked for
the executioner, and presented him with a purse containing ten guineas.
He then asked to see the axe, felt its edge, and said he thought it
would do. Next he looked at his coffin, on which was inscribed:
SIMON, DOMINUS FRASER DE LOVAT.
Decollat April 9, 1747
AEtat suae 80.
After repeating some lines from Horace, and next from Ovid, he prayed,
then bade adieu to his solicitor and agent in Scotland; finally the
executioner completed his work, the head falling from the body. Lord
Lovat was the last person beheaded in England.
_Andrews: "Bygone Punishments."_
LUCAN or LUCANUS (Marcus Annaeus, Roman epic poet, nephew of the
philosopher Seneca), 38-65.
Lucan exhibited great apparent serenity at the approach of death. After
the veins of his arm had been voluntarily opened, and he had lost a
large quantity of blood, he felt his hands and his legs losing their
vitality. As the hour of death approached, he commenced repeating
several lines out of his own "Pharsalia," descriptive of a person
similarly situated to himself. These lines he repeated until he died:
"_Asunder flies the man--
No single wound the gaping rupture seems,
Where trickling crimson flows the tender streams;
But from an opening horrible and wide
A thousand vessels pour the bursting tide:
At once the winding channel's course was broke,
Where wandering life her mazy journey took._"
_Winslow: "Anatomy of Suicide."_
LUCAS (Sir Charles. He commanded the right wing of the royal army at
Marston Moor, was taken prisoner at Colchester, where he was put to
death August 29th, 1648),--1648. "_Soldiers, fire!_" to the soldiers
appointed to shoot him.
LULLI or LULLY (Jean Baptiste, Italian composer, called "the Father of
French Dramatic Music"), 1633-1687. "_Sinner, thou must die._" In sign
of his repentance he died with a halter around his neck, repeating and,
sometimes singing, with tears of remorse, "Sinner, thou must die."
LUTHER (Martin, the greatest of the Protestant reformers), 1484-1546.
"_Yes_," in response to the question whether he stood by the doctrines
of Scripture as he had taught them.
The same man who could scold like a fishwife could be as gentle as a
tender maiden. At times he was as fierce as the storm that uproots oaks;
and then again he was as mild as the zephyr caressing the violets....
The refinement of Erasmus, the mildness of Melancthon, could never have
brought us so far as the godlike brutality of brother Martin.--_Heine._
LYTTELTON (George, first Lord, English statesman, author of "Dialogues
of the Dead," and "History of Henry II."), 1709-1773. "_Be good, be
virtuous, my lord, you must come to this_," to his son-in-law, Lord
Valentia.
MACAULAY (Thomas Babington, Lord), 1800-1859. "_I shall retire early; I
am very tired_," said to his butler, who asked him if he would not rest
on the sofa.