In reverent silence, in the gloom Brooding beneath the mighty dome, Conqueror, to share the conquer'd's doom, Leave him to fame in his last home. March-comrades, march—hark! in the hush, I hear

Quatre Bras' hurrah, and Waterloo's fierce cheer.

W. C. BENNETT.

Maria Edgeworth lived to eighty-three or eightyfour, and published her last and best novel, "Helen,” when about seventy.

Goethe died in his eighty-fourth year, tranquilly writing on the air, and calling for "more light."

Elizabeth Le Brun, painter, whose portraits Sir Joshua Reynolds pronounced "as fine as those of any painter" not excepting Vandyck, died when near eighty-seven. She painted six hundred and sixty-two portraits, fifteen large compositions, and two hundred landscapes.

Mrs. Hannah More died at eighty-nine-decaying almost imperceptibly amidst works of usefulnesswriting, at the age of eighty, her " Spirit of Prayer" -the happiest of happy voices from the dark valley -and calmly dying of old age eighty-three or eightyfour years after that birthday when she was enraptured to receive for a present a whole quire of paper on which to pen her childish compositions in prose and

verse.

The eminent naturalist, Humboldt, tranquilly studied at Berlin until very near his death at ninety. His crowning work, the "Cosmos " (which has been translated into all civilized languages) was completed when he was eighty-nine.

At ninety-one died Michael Angelo, the great sculptor, painter, and poet. To the last he was

neither childish nor feeble in intellect, nor in the least chilled at heart. At this great age, when the Pope sent to offer him the task of painting the drapery over the figures in "The Last Judgment," the fiery old man answered, with cutting irony, "That is soon done. The Pope has to put the world in order: it is but a small matter as regards pictures, for they keep still." Thoughts of death engaged the great soul of Angelo long before the end. Most of his poems were written in later life, and they are full of the great change in view. Sometimes he sinks into dejection, chafing under ducal and papal despotism, and compelled to silent endurThus he writes :

ance.

Not always that which the world holds most dear
Is that which satisfies the heart's desires;
For the sweet things for which the world aspires
Gall-like and cruel to our hearts appear,
And often needs it that we passive yield

To the vain fancies of the foolish crowd,
Fostering sadness while we laugh aloud,

And smiling with our tears but half conceal'd.
That no strange eye my sorrowing soul may see,
That no strange ear my whisper'd hopes may
hear,-

This is the happiness vouchsafed to me.

Blind to the honour and the praise of men,
Far happier he, wandering alone and drear,
Who takes his solitary path again.

Later he writes:

Borne to the utmost brink of life's dark sea,
Too late thy joys I understand, O earth!
How thou dost promise peace which cannot be,
And that repose which ever dies at birth.

The retrospect of life through many a day, Now to its close attain'd by Heaven's decree, Brings forth from memory, in sad array,

Only old errors, fain forgot by meErrors which e'en, if long life's erring day To soul-destruction would have led my way. For this I know, the greatest bliss on high Belongs to him call'd earliest to die.

When more than ninety, the elegant poet Rogers delighted to watch the changing colours of the evening sky, to repeat passages of his favourite poets, or to dwell on the merits of the great painters whose works adorned his walls. By slow decay and without any suffering, he died on the 18th of December, 1855, in the house which he had enriched with some of the finest and rarest pictures, busts, books, gems, and other articles of virtù, and where he had been wont to entertain large circles of literary and artistic friends and acquaintances. He says of his own lot :

Nature denied him much,

:-

But gave him at his birth what most he values:
A passionate love for music, sculpture, painting,
For poetry, the language of the gods;
For all things here, or grand or beautiful,
A setting sun, a lake among the mountains,
The light of an ingenuous countenance,
And, what transcends them all, a noble action.

Hobbes, the philosopher, died in 1679, when he was approaching his ninety-second year. In his eighty-ninth year he published his translation of Homer, a wonderful demonstration of mental vigour at so advanced an age. The whole of his later years were spent in almost continuous literary labour. It would have been well if this mighty

thinker and reasoner had learned some other truths than reason could teach him-truths suitable for a deathbed. "He could not bear any discourse of death, and seemed to cast off all thoughts about it. He delighted to reckon on longer life. The winter before he died he made a warm coat, which he said must last him three years, and then he would have such another. In his last sickness his frequent questions were whether his disease were curable; and when intimations were given that he might have ease but no remedy, he used this expression: I shall be glad then to find a hole to creep out of the world at,' which are reported to have been his last sensible words; and his lying some days following in a silent stupefaction did seem owing to his mind more than to his body. The only thought of death that he appeared to entertain in time of health was to take care of some inscription on his grave. He would suffer some friends to dictate an epitaph, among which he was best pleased with this humour: This is the true PHILOSOPHER'S STONE."

One of Cowley's most eloquent Pindaric odes was addressed to Hobbes. It concludes thus:

Nor can the snow which now cold age doth shed Upon thy reverend head

Quench or alloy the noble fires within;

But all which thou hast been,

And all that youth can be, thou'rt yet;

So fully still dost thou

Enjoy the manhood and the bloom of wit,
And all the natural heat, but not the fever too.
So contraries on Ætna's top conspire;

Here hoary frosts, and by them breaks out fire.
A secure peace the faithful neighbours keep;
The embolden'd snow next to the flame does sleep.

And if we weigh, like thee,

Nature and causes, we shall see

That thus it needs must be:

To things immortal time can do no wrong, And that which never is to die for ever must be young.

The great architect of St. Paul's Cathedral, Sir Christopher Wren, suffered marked neglect and ingratitude in his old age; but, unmoved by the loss of court favour, he declined tranquilly, revising his works, until his death, Feb. 25, 1723, at ninety-one.

The children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren gather now about the dying bed :

GREAT-GRANDFATHER.

Children, I'm going home,

And the way is dark with sorrow;

My hair is thin and grey,

And the night comes on my day,
But I shall be young to-morrow;
Younger than you, O children!

In the land without endeavour,
Where the blind recover sight,
And the morning hath no night,
And love endures for ever.

These eyes, that see but dimly
Your long soft golden hair,
Shall pierce with keener vision
Than the falcon's in the air
Through mysteries and wonders
That the tongue cannot declare.
These senses, long obstructed

By the weight and wear of earth,
Shall feel a fresh unfolding,

And a new immortal birth.