thou likes, but I'll take good care thou dost not come again."

It is an interesting circumstance in the History of Wit, that it has sometimes gleamed as brightly from lips about to be closed in death, as ever from the most gay assemblies of the living. The ruling passion has ever been said to be strong in death. Wits have been fond of indicating and satirising it, -and life shows it. Men die as they have lived. Those who quarrel with the manifestation of the ruling propensity of the mind in the best hours of life, would have men to play the hypocrite in their last hours. The last words of men have usually been synonymous with their life-long character: the last words of Rabelais were quite in keeping with that wild jesting, that torrent of merriment, that flowed and flashed from his lips and pen in the hey-day of his life. Whether he left that remarkable will sealed up, with the three articles, "I owe much I have nothing-I give the rest to the poor," may be doubtful; more probable is the story, that when some persons importuned him to sign a will, bestowing upon them legacies exceeding his abilities, he, to be rid of them, complied.— They then asked him where they should find a fund answerable to that he gave. “As for that,” said he, "you must e'en do like the spaniel-look about and search." His last words, however, were most characteristic, and have become proverbial;

they were uttered to the page of the Cardinal Bellay. "Tell my lord in what circumstances thou findest me; I am first going to leap into the dark. Let down the curtain-the farce is done." This is quite in character with the life of the great Frenchman. For ourselves, we would wish to draw the curtains around us with more composure and decency, yet smile cheerfully while they closed us in. The innocent mirth of Sir Thomas More upon the scaffold looks much more beautiful; it was quite in keeping with his cheerful life. As he mounted to the block, he said, merrily, "Master Lieutenant, I pray you see me safe up; and for my coming down, let me shift for myself." His last words were a humourous allusion to his own innocence, and the caprice of the king who had ordered his execution. He besought the executioner to wait until he had "removed his beard, or that had never offended his highness." These ludicrous allusions were consistent with the life of this great man. The lambent fires of his wit and pleasantry had been wont frequently to play amidst the decisions of points of law. The light of his quiet humour shone forth repeatedly amidst desultory studies. To him the seriousness of death was but one degree more present than it had been for years. Solitude, study, and devotion, had accustomed him to the full view of it. The lively words came as naturally from his cheerful lips, as

the graver sentences of martyrs not more noble.And the same remarks apply to the philosophic courage with which Raleigh bowed his neck to the block. A man, indeed, wonderfully inferior to More, in both the purpose and the purity of his life; yet he also carried the perception of the ends of life, combined with the grasp of expression, which had introduced him into favour, and kept him there at the court of the Virgin Queen,-to the scaffold. "When, Sir Walter, will you cease to be a beggar?" "When your majesty ceases to be a benefactor." In those days, we looked upon him as a sad picture of magnificence and meanness. Years have swept along, and they have brought the scaffold, and the gleaming axe; but they have also brought a more vivid insight into the hollowness and the meanness of things, and men. He sees the ludicrousness of that cowardly fear of death, which haunts almost every life; he becomes the consoler of his friends, and speaks to them with quiet, cheerful humour. "Why, the world itself," says he, "is but a larger prison out of which some are daily chosen for execution." The old soldier had heard of the sad hackings made by bungling executioners, and blunt axes. He is able to judge

of the fitness of this tool for its office-it will do."It is a sharp medicine," said he, "but a sure one for all ills." Thus has Humour shed its soft light over the shining and the cruel steel; and minds at

ease with themselves, have made their death words sportive and mirthsome.

[The indisposition of the author has prevented him from extending the present subject: which, however, will be continued in a second edition. A few suitable sketches, which were some time ago written by the author, are now added to complete the volume.]