The Last Words Of Distinguished Men And Women Part 6

Opposition was feared from the Romans. It was a.s.serted that it was not Michael Angelo's last wish to be buried in his native city. His friends went secretly to work. The coffin was conveyed as merchandise out of the gates.

On the eleventh of March it arrived at Florence. After thirty years of voluntary exile, Michael Angelo returned, when dead, to his native city.

Only a few knew that it was he who entered the gate in that covered coffin.

In the sacristy the coffin was opened for the first time. The people had forced their way into the church. There he lay; and, in spite of three weeks having elapsed since his death, he seemed unchanged, and bore no symptom of decay; the features undisfigured, as if he had just died.

_Grimm: "Life of Michael Angelo."_

About the year 1720 the vault in Santa Croce was opened, and the remains of Michael Angelo were found not to have lost their original form. He was habited in the costume of the ancient citizens of Florence, in a gown of green velvet, and slippers of the same.--_Bottari._

BURKE or BOURKE (Edmund, orator, and statesman), 1730-1797. "_G.o.d bless you._"

BURN (Andrew, major-general in the Royal Marines), 1742-1814. "_n.o.body, n.o.body but Jesus Christ. Christ crucified is the stay of my poor soul_," to one who asked him if he wished to see any one.

BURNS (Robert, the great peasant poet of Scotland), 1759-1796. "_Oh, don't let the awkward squad fire over me!_" He alluded to a body of Dumfries militia, of which he was a member, and of which he entertained a very poor opinion.[9]

[9] In the Appendix of Allan Cunningham's "Life of Burns" we read of an examination of the poet's Tomb, made immediately after that life was published:

"When Burns's Mausoleum was opened in March, 1834, to receive the remains of his widow, some residents in Dumfries obtained the consent of her nearest relative to take a cast from the cranium of the poet. This was done during the night between the 31st of March and 1st of April. Mr. Archibald Blacklock, surgeon, drew up the following description:

"The cranial bones were perfect in every respect, if we except a little erosion of their external table, and firmly held together by their sutures, &c., &c. Having completed our intention [_i. e._, of taking a plaster cast of the skull, washed from every particle of sand, &c.], the skull securely closed in a leaden case, was again committed to the earth, precisely where we found it."

BURR (Aaron, third Vice-President of the United States. In 1804 he fought his famous duel with Hamilton), 1756-1836. "_Madame._"

BURTON (Sir Richard F.), 1821-1890. "_Oh Puss, chloroform--ether--or I am a dead man_," said to his wife who feared to administer an anaesthetic without the direction of a physician. Dr. Barker in a letter to Lady Stisled says that a moment later "suddenly the breathing became labored, there were a few moments of awful struggle for air, then, conscious to the last, he exclaimed, 'I am a dead man,' fell back on his pillow and expired."

BUTLER (Benjamin Franklin, attorney-general of the United States, from 1831 to 1834), 1795-1858. "_I have peace, perfect peace. 'Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee.'_"

BUTLER (Joseph, English Bishop, and author of the celebrated "a.n.a.logy of Religion"), 1692-1752. "_I have often read and thought of that scripture, but never till this moment did I feel its full power, and now I die happy._" These words were spoken to his chaplain who read him John vi., and called attention to the 37th verse: "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out."

BYRON (George Gordon Noel, Lord, one of the greatest of English poets), 1788-1824. "_I must sleep now._"

It has been a.s.serted, upon what authority the compiler does not know, that the last words of Byron were, "Shall I sue for mercy?" After a long pause he added, it is said, "Come, come, no weakness: let me be a man to the last."

CAESAR (Caius Julius), B. C. 100-44. "_Et tu Brute!_" to Marcus Brutus, on discovering him among the a.s.sa.s.sins.

Authorities differ: some have it, "What! art thou, too, one of them!

Thou, my son!" and others omit the words "my son." If, however, the last two words are to be retained, they express only the difference of age between Caesar and Brutus. There is no good reason for regarding them as an avowal that Brutus was the fruit of the connection between Julius and Servilia.

He died in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and was ranked amongst the G.o.ds, not only by a formal decree, but in the belief of the vulgar. For during the first games which Augustus, his heir, consecrated to his memory, a comet blazed for seven days together, rising always about eleven o'clock; and it was supposed to be the soul of Caesar, now received into heaven; for which reason, likewise, he is represented in his statue with a star on his brow. The senate-house in which he was slain was ordered to be shut up, and a decree was made that the ides of March should be called parricidal, and that the senate should never more a.s.semble on that day.

_J. Eugene Reed: "The Twelve Caesars."_

CALDERON (Don Rodrigo, adventurer, who under the t.i.tle of Marques de Siete Iglesias, rose to the first place in Spanish influence and power, in the time of Philip III.),--1621. "_All my life I have carried myself gracefully_," to his confessor who reproved him for his ill-timed regard for appearances when about to die upon the scaffold.

CADOGAN (William Bromley, English clergyman), 1751-1797. "_I thank you for all your faithful services; G.o.d bless you_," to a servant who had been with him many years.

CALHOUN (John Caldwell, Vice-President of the United States, called the "Father of State-rights"), 1782-1850. "_The South! The South! G.o.d knows what will become of her!_"

"He died under the firm impression that the South was betrayed and gone."

_An unpublished letter from Senator Hunter of Virginia._

CALHOUN (Simeon Howard, missionary in the Holy Land for nearly forty years. He was a thorough scholar in Arabic and Turkish languages, and a.s.sisted Dr. Goodell in making the first translation of the Bible into Turkish), 1804-1876. "_Were the church of Christ what she should be, twenty years would not pa.s.s away without the story of the cross being uttered in the ear of every living person._"

CALVIN (John, one of the greatest of the Protestant Reformers, and "The Father of Presbyterianism"), 1509-1564. "_Thou, Lord, bruisest me; but I am abundantly satisfied, since it is from thy hand._"

On the day of his death, he appeared stronger, and spoke with less difficulty; but this was the last effort of nature, for about eight o'clock in the evening, certain symptoms of dissolution manifested themselves. When one of his domestics brought one of the brethren, and me, who had only just left him, this intelligence, I returned immediately with all speed, and found he had died in so very tranquil a manner, that without his feet and hands being in any respect discomposed, or his breathing increased, his senses, judgment and in some measure his voice, remaining entire to his very last gasp, he appeared more to resemble one in a state of sleep than death.... At two o'clock in the afternoon on Sunday, his body was carried to the common burying-place, called Plein Palais, without extraordinary pomp. His funeral, however, was attended by the members of the senate, the pastors, all the professors of the college, and a great portion of the citizens. The abundance of tears shed on this occasion afforded the strongest evidence of the sense which they entertained of their loss.

According to his own directions, no hillock, no monument was erected to his memory.--_Theodore Beza: "Life of John Calvin."_

CAMPBELL (Thomas, English poet), 1777-1844. "_No; it was one Tom Campbell._" Campbell's friends were doubtful whether he was conscious or not of what was going on in his presence, and had recourse to an artifice to learn. One of them spoke of the poem "Hohenlinden," and pretending to forget the author's name, said he had heard it was by Mr.

Robinson. Campbell saw the trick, was amused, and said playfully, but in a calm and distinct tone, "No; it was one Tom Campbell."

Some time before he uttered his last words he said:--

"When I think of the existence which shall commence when the stone is laid over my head, how can literary fame appear to me, to any one, but as nothing? I believe, when I am gone, justice will be done to me in this way--that I was a pure writer. It is an inexpressible comfort, at my time of life, to be able to look back and feel that I have not written one line against religion or virtue."

CANO (Alonzo, the "Michael Angelo of Spain"), 1601-1667. "_Vex me not with this thing, but give me a simple cross, that I may adore it, both as it is in itself and as I can figure it in my mind_," to a priest who gave him an elaborate but badly carved cross. He had previously refused the sacrament from the hand of a priest who had administered it to converted Jews.

CARLYLE (Thomas, essayist, translator, and historian), 1795-1881. His mind was wandering when Froude went to his bedside, but he recognized him and said: "_I am very ill. Is it not strange that these people should have chosen the very oldest man in all Britain to make suffer in this way?_" Froude answered, "We do not know exactly why those people act as they do. They may have reasons we cannot guess at." "_Yes_," said Carlyle, "_it would be rash to say that they have no reasons_." When Froude saw him next, his speech was gone.[10]

[10] On February 5th, 1881, in the tranquil exhaustion of a ripe old age, this true SAGE of modern times pa.s.sed away at his home in Cheyne Row, Chelsea, where he had lived for fifty years: and,--as the _Times_ remarked,--the world seemed duller, colder, and darker, in that this one grey old man had left it.

No time was lost in collecting funds to provide for a public monument of the philosopher. The work was entrusted to Mr. J. E.

Boehm, R. A., with the result of a most admirable statue in bronze, life-size, representing Carlyle as he was in his latter days, in an att.i.tude of thought, seated in an arm-chair, and wearing his well-known dressing-gown. "For this n.o.ble piece of portraiture," Mr.

Ruskin wrote of it, "I cannot trust myself to express my personal grat.i.tude, or to speak at all of the high and harmonious measure in which it seems to me to express the mind and features of my dear master." It is appropriately placed in the little public garden, at the end of Great Cheyne Row, Chelsea, where Carlyle had spent the last forty years of his life. There, on October 26th, 1882, in presence of many of those who were his attached friends in life, it was unveiled by Professor Tyndall, who delivered an eloquent address on the occasion. Among those who a.s.sisted were Lord Houghton, Mrs.

Oliphant, Miss Swanwick, Moncure D. Conway, Robert Browning, Dr.

Martineau, Mr. W. E. H. Lecky, and others. A simple inscription on the ma.s.sive pedestal, of Aberdeen granite, records the dates of the birth and death of the remarkable man in whose honour it is erected.--_William Bates._

CARNOT (Marie Francois Sadi-Carnot, President of the French Republic, a.s.sa.s.sinated by Cesare Giovanni Santo in Lyons, June 24, 1894), 1837-1894. "_I am grateful for your presence._" These words were in response to those of Dr. Poncet who leaned over the bed on which the President was lying, and said, "Your friends are here, Monsieur le President."