Mozart.-You spoke of refreshment, my Emilie: take my last notes, sit down at the piano, sing them with the hymn of your sainted mother; let me hear once more those notes which have so long been my solace and delight. Haydn.-God preserve the Emperor! Haller. The artery ceases to beat. Grotius. Be serious. Erasmus.-Lord, make an end. Cardinal Beaufort.-What! is there no bribing death? Hilary, Bishop of Poictiers.-Soul, thou hast served Christ these seventy years, and art thou afraid to die? Go out, soul, go out. Queen Elizabeth.-All my possessions for a moment of time! Charles II.-Let not poor Nelly starve. Anne Boleyn. It is small, very small indeed (clasping her neck). Sir Thomas More.-I pray you see me safe up; and as for my coming down, let me shift for myself (ascending the scaffold). John Hampden.-O Lord, save my country! O Lord, be merciful to Chancellor Thurlow.-I'm shot if I don't believe I'm dying. Nero.-Is this your fidelity? Herder.-Refresh me with a great thought. Frederick V., of Denmark.-There is not a drop of blood on my hands. Mirabeau.-Let me die amid the sound of delicious music and the fragrance of flowers. Madame de Staël.-I have loved God, my father, and liberty. Lord Nelson.-Kiss me, Hardy. Lord Chesterfield.-Give Dayrolles a chair. Hobbes.-I am taking a fearful leap in the dark. Byron.-I must sleep now. Sir Walter Scott.-I feel as if I were to be myself again. Keats. I feel the daisies growing over me. Robert Burns.-Don't let that awkward squad fire over my grave. Lawrence.-Don't give up the ship. Washington.-It is well. Franklin.-A dying man can do nothing easy. Wolfe. Now, God be praised, I will die in peace. Marion. Thank God, I can lay my hand upon my heart and say that since I came to man's estate I have never intentionally done wrong to any one. Adams.-Independence forever! Jefferson. I resign my soul to God, and my daughter to my country. J. Q. Adams. This is the last of earth. I am content. Harrison. I wish you to understand the true principles of the Government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more. Taylor. I have endeavored to do my duty. THE LAST PRAYER OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. Written in her Prayer-Book the morning before her Execution : O! Domine Deus, Speravi in te,- In durâ catenâ, Adoro, imploro, (0 my Lord and my God, I have trusted in thee; Now liberate me. REMARKABLE TRANCE. At the siege of Rouen, the body of François de Civille, a French captain who was supposed to have been killed, was thrown with others into the ditch, where it remained from eleven o'clock in the morning to half-past six in the evening, when his servant, observing some latent heat, carried the body into the house. During the ensuing five days and nights not the slightest sign of life was exhibited, although the body gradually recovered its warmth. At the expiration of this time the town was carried by assault, and the servants of an officer belonging to the besiegers, having found the supposed corpse of Civille, threw it out of a window, with no other covering than his shirt. Fortunately for the captain, he fell upon a heap of straw, where he remained senseless three days longer, when he was taken up by his relations for sepulture and ultimately brought to life. What was still more strange, Civille, like Macduff, had been "from his mother's womb untimely ripped," having been brought into the world by a Cæsarian operation which his mother did not survive. After his last escape he used to add to his signature, "three times born, three times buried, and three times risen from the dead by the grace of God." QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION. Whether, as in the case of the Abbé Prevost in the forest of Chantilly, if a supposed cadaver, while subjected to the investigating knife of the anatomist, should awake from a trance only to be conscious of his horrible condition and to expire from the immediate effect of the dissection, it is any thing more than homicide per infortuniam, or not. Whether, in the case of Lazarus, who was restored to life by the Saviour after decomposition had commenced, he could have reclaimed property already in the possession and occupancy of the heirs to whom he had willed it before death. PRESERVED BODIES. There is an arched vault, or burying-ground, under the church at Kilsyth, in Scotland, which was the burying-place of the family of Kilsyth until the estate was forfeited and the title became extinct in the year 1715, since which it has never been used for that purpose except once. The last earl fled with his family to Flanders, and, according to tradition, was smothered to death about the year 1717, along with his lady and an infant child, and a number of other unfortunate Scottish exiles, by the falling in of the roof of a house in which they were assembled. What became of the body of the earl is not known; but the bodies of Lady Kilsyth and her infant were disembowelled and embalmed, and soon afterwards sent over to Scotland. They were landed, and lay at Leith for some time, whence they were afterwards carried to Kilsyth, and buried with great pomp, in the vault above mentioned. In the spring of 1796, some reckless young men, having paid a visit to this ancient cemetery, tore open the coffin of Lady Kilsyth and her infant. With astonishment and consternation they saw the bodies of Lady Kilsyth and her child as perfect as they had been the hour they were entombed. For some weeks this circumstance was kept secret; but at last it began to be whispered in several companies, and soon excited great and general curiosity. "On the 12th of June," wrote the minister of the parish of Kilsyth, in a letter to Dr. Garnet, "when I was from home, great crowds assembled, and would not be denied admission. At all hours of the night, as well as the day, they afterwards persisted in gratifying their curiosity. I saw the body of Lady Kilsyth soon after the coffin was opened. It was quite entire. Every feature and every limb was as full, nay, the very shroud was as clear and fresh and the colors of the ribands as bright, as the day they were lodged in the tomb. What rendered this scene more striking and truly interesting was that the body of her son and only child, the natural heir of the title and estates of Kilsyth, lay at her knee. His features were as composed as if he had been only asleep. His color was as fresh, and his flesh as plump and full, as in the perfect glow of health; the smile of infancy and innocence sat on his lips. His shroud was not only entire, but perfectly clean, without a particle of dust upon it. He seems to have been only a few months old. The body of Lady Kilsyth was equally well pre served; and at a little distance, from the feeble light of a taper, it would not have been easy to distinguish whether she was Idead or alive. The features, nay, the very expression of her countenance, were marked and distinct; and it was only in a certain light that you could distinguish any thing like the agonizing traits of a violent death. Not a single fold of her shroud was decayed, nor a single member impaired. Neither of the bodies appear to have undergone the slightest decomposition or disorganization. Several medical gentlemen made incisions into the arm of the infant, and found the substance of the body quite firm, and in its original state." The writer states, among other interesting points that attracted his attention, that the bodies appeared to have been saturated in some aromatic liquid, of the color of dark brandy, with which the coffin had been filled, but which had nearly all evaporated. Other instances of the artificial preservation of bodies might be mentioned, still more remarkable, though perhaps less interesting, than the preceding. The tomb of Edward the First, who died on the 7th of July, 1307, was opened on the 2d of January, 1770, and after the lapse of four hundred and sixtythree years the body was found undecayed: the flesh on the face was a little wasted, but not decomposed. The body of Canute the Dane, who obtained possession of England in the year 1017, was found quite fresh in the year 1766, by the workmen repairing Winchester Cathedral. In the year 1522, the body of William the Conqueror was found as entire as when first buried, in the Abbey Church of St. Stephen at Caen; and the body of Matilda his queen was found entire in 1502, in the Abbey Church of the Holy Trinity in the same city. No device of art, however, for the preservation of the remains of the dead, appears equal to the simple process of plunging them into peat-moss. In a manuscript by one Abraham Grey, who lived about the middle of the sixteenth century, now in the possession of his representative Mr. Goodbehere Grey, of Old Mills, near Aber |