"His death was occasioned by a tumor of the brain, which, after having attained a certain size, encroached on the cavities (or, as they are technically termed, the ventricles) of the brain, and caused an effusion of the fluid into them, producing paralysis of one side of the body; and it is worthy of notice, that certain symptoms which he had himself noted, and as to the cause of which he had been in the habit of speculating, proved that this organic disease must have existed from a very early period of his life, without interfering with those scientific investigations which made him one of the most eminent philosophers, and one of the greatest ornaments of the age in which he lived. During his last illness his mental faculties were perfect, so that he dictated an account of some scientific observations, which would have been lost to the world otherwise. Some time before his life was finally extinguished, he was seen pale, as if there were scarcely any circulation of blood going on, motionless, and, to all appearance, in a state of complete insensibility; being in this condition, his friends, who were watching around him, observed some motions of the hand which was not affected by the paralysis. After some time it occurred to them that he wished to have a pencil and paper; these having been supplied, he contrived to write some figures in arithmetical progression, which, however imperfectly scrawled, were yet sufficiently legible. It was supposed that he had overheard some remarks respecting the state in which he was, and that his object was to show that he possessed his sensibility and consciousness. Something like this occurred some hours afterwards, and immediately before he died, but the scrawl of these last moments was not to be deciphered."

To the same effect is a narrative of the Rev. Adam Clarke.*

§ 19. The Rev. Wm. Tennent, a Presbyterian minister of great eminence, and of the highest character for truth and simplicity, was attacked, when in his nineteenth year, by a lung fever, of whose effects he apparently died. "His body," to adopt his own narration, as given to us by one of those to whom he communicated it himself, "was laid out in the usual manner, in the back part of a room in one of the oldfashioned Dutch houses. On Monday morning, when they went to put him in the coffin, a man by the name of Duncan, who was assisting, called out to the others to lay him down, for he felt his heart beat, and was sure there was life in him. His brother Gilbert derided the assertion of Duncan, and, indeed, there was everything to induce a belief that he was dead. The length of time that he had been sick, his emaciated body, his black lips, his sunken eye,—all appearances were against remaining life. But, after this declaration of Duncan, it would not do to bury him, and the funeral was postponed till Tuesday, when the people assembled for the burial. In the mean time, all means had been used to restore life. They were again about to put the body into the coffin, when again Duncan called out 'Lay him down, for I am sure there is life in him.' No other person believed there was life, and yet, so long as he retained this opinion, they would not allow the funeral-service to proceed.

* Post, & 169.

† See Letter from General Cumming, 2 Sprague's Annals Am. Pulp., p. 55.

The funeral was again postponed until Wednesday, and the means of restoring life meanwhile applied with the utmost diligence and vigor. At the time appointed, the people again assembled, and the doctor was sitting on the bedside, with a looking-glass in one hand and a feather in the other, trying them alternately at his mouth and his nose. At the very last moment, to the unspeakable surprise of all, he opened his eyes, gazed at them, and swooned away for about two hours."

Mr. Tennent lived to the age of seventy-two, and led a life remarkable for its integrity and purity. During the whole of this life he maintained that, while in this state of apparent suspended animation, his spirit was in a condition of vivid and beatified consciousness.*

§ 20. We may be permitted to add a well-authenticated American case. A gentleman, in a state of suspended animation, was given over by his family as dead, and was subjected to the usual preparations for burial. He fortunately was restored to active conciousness, and, as soon as he could express himself, detailed the acute horror with which he had watched, without the power of resistance, the successive arrangements made for his sepulture.

To the same point is the following statement, made by one. of the companions of the late Dr. Kane :—“The soul can lift the body out of its boots, sir. When our captain was dying, I say dying, I have seen scurvy enough to know, every old scar in his body was a running ulcer. If conscience

* See, for a full narration, Dr. Sprague's Annals, etc. vol. ii. p. 52.

festers under its wounds correspondingly, hell is not hard to understand. I never saw a case so bad that either lived or died. Men die of it usually long before they are so ill as he was. There was trouble aboard; there might be mutiny. So soon as the breath was out of his body, we might be at each other's throats. I felt that he owed even the repose of dying to the service. I went down to his bunk, and shouted in his ear, Mutiny, captain, mutiny!' He shook off the cadaveric stupor. 'Let me up,' he said, 'and order these fellows before me.' He heard the complaint, ordered punishment, and, from that hour, convalesced. Keep that man awake with danger, and he wouldn't die of anything until his duty was done.”

§ 21. e. Lust. A very striking case, which may fall under this head, is reported as having lately occurred in a Paris hospital. A man, notorious as a miser, was announced by the nurse in attendance as dead. In the next cot lay a pickpocket, who had been quietly waiting for the moment when he could crawl up to his intended prey and empty his gorged pockets. It was midnight, and the ward was deserted of its attendants, when suddenly an unearthly shriek was heard. The nurses rushed to the spot, and found the dead man, with his long-nailed fingers fixed through the thief's neck. The miser, apparently insensible, had felt the thief approach. The ruling passion of avarice was still raging, with unabated fury, within his almost lifeless frame. Outside of that frame it was about to rage through all eternity, torturing and tortured. But now, by one of those violent nervous efforts which prove so remarkably the ascendency of mind over body, the deserted frame was once more convulsed by

the return of this unearthly lust. It was but for a moment, and then the miser and the thief fell lifeless to the ground.*

Colonel Chartres may be taken as a type of that class of cases in which lust survives the bodily mechanism through which it worked, and in which it was incased. Of immense wealth and of aristocratic connection every effort was turned to the gratification of animal passion. Even in his old age, his body burned to a cinder, the fire of passion continued unabated. Utterly impotent in body, he pursued the shadow of the same lusts with the same energy with which he had once pursued their substance. At last, a scheme was laid to entrap him, which resulted in his prosecution for rape. He was tried, convicted, and executed, though it afterwards appeared that there was perjury as to the overt act. Swift's epitaph is well worthy of study, not only for its fierce eloquence but for its psychological truth:

HERE continueth to rot
the body of

FRANCIS CHARTRES,

Who, with an INFLEXIBLE CONSTANCY and

INIMITABLE UNIFORMITY of life, PERSISTED, in spite of
AGE and INFIRMITIES, in the practice of EVERY HUMAN VICE,
Excepting PRODIGALITY and HYPOCRISY:

His insatiable AVARICE exempted him from the first,
His matchless IMPUDENCE from the second.

Nor was he more singular in the undeviating pravity of his manners,
Than successful in accumulating WEALTH: for, without

* See an article in the Episcopal Review for July, 1858, by the present writer, from which a portion of the remarks in the text are drawn.