LAST WORDS.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume IV, Issue 382, 26 February 1876, Page 3

LAST WORDS.

Dr Johnson's last words, addressed.: to ,a . young ladj standing by his bedside, . were j ' { God bless you, my dear." And " G-od bless you ! ... Is that you, Dora ?" were Wordsworth's last words. There is a singular identity, also ,> between the last utterances of Mrs Hannah Moore, find or the historian, Sir James Mackintosh ; the last words of both consisted of one woedj. and > both alike breathe. the same epjrifrof happinesdr ]

"Joy" was the last utterance of the former, and "happy" that of the latter. " I am ready " Were the last words of the great actor, Charles Mnthews.. SdtarSxanf. about eleven o'clock on the night of his death, gave a deep sigh, and exclaimed, " Now it is come." Theater were hia last words, for in a few moments later he expired. General Washington's last words were firm cool, and reliaot'as himself. "I am about to die?' paid he, "and I am not afraid to die." Noble words these! There is something in them which reminds us of Addiaon's celebrated request to those around him "to mark how a Christian could die." Etty, the great painter, quietly marked the progress of dissolution going on within his frame, and coolly moralised thereon, His last words were ; " Wonderful— wonderful, this death!" and he uttered them with perfect calmness. Thomas Hood's last words were : '' Dying, d^ing ;"a8 though^ oay.B his biographer, "he was glad to realise the- sense of re3t implied in them." Amongßt the last utterances of' another great wit, Douglas Jerrold, was- the reply which he made to the question, " How he felt ?" Jerrold's reply was quick and terse, as his conversation always was. He felt, he said, " as. one was waiting, and waiting for." When we remember Charlotte JBronteVs stormy and sorrowful life, lightened for only a few brief months towards its close by her marriage with her father's curate, Mr Nichols, there is a melancholy plaintiveness in her last words. Addressing her husband,she said, " I am not going to die, am I ? Ho will not separate us ; We have been so happy." Poor Oliver Goldsmith's last words are also very plaintive. "Is your mind at ease asked his doctor, " No, it is not," was poor Goldsmith's melancholy reply; This was the last sentence he ever uttered, and it is sorrowful, like his life. One of Keat's latest utterances is full of a singular pathos and beauty. " I feel," he *aid on his deathbed, "I feel the flowers growing over me!" Qasßo'a last words — In manus tuas Domine" (Into Thy hands, O Lord, do I commit my spirit) — are eminently religious. They were uttered by him with extreme difficulty, and immediately afterwards be expired. Napoleon's last words asuredly exhibit " the ruling passiou strong in death." On his deathbed) he became delirious. He issued orders to his troops, and imagined that he was conducting a great battle, "2'Ste d,armee," were the last words which escaped his lips.