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THOMAS MOORE.

although Lord John Russell said that there was never a total extinction of the bright flame. He died calmly and without pain. And the cast of his face certainly reflects much that Willis had drawn in his Pencillings by the Way.

Sheridan said once of a fellow-Irishman that Burke's "abilities, happily for the glory of our age, are not intrusted to the perishable eloquence of the day, but will live to be the admiration of that hour when all of us shall be mute, and most of us forgotten." Burke, in all of his relations, was a better man than Sheridan, and he met, as he deserved, a better fate. He fell asleep for the last time with Addison's chapter on "The Immortality of the Soul" under his pillow, and with the respect and gratitude of all England at his feet. The mask of Burke was offered for sale-and was sold -in London a few months ago, with a certificate from Mr. Edward B. Wood, of Moreton Hall, Chirk, stating that it was made by the especial desire of Queen Charlotte on the day of Burke's death. The name of the artist is unknown, but he is said to have received two hundred guineas for the work. After the death of her Majesty the mask was given by George IV. to C. Nugent, his gen

tleman - in - waiting, from whom it came into the possession of his nephew, Mr. Wood. This original mask, from the Queen's cabinet, is now the property of The Players. It is very like the familiar portrait of Burke by Opie.

George Combe had a mask of Curran in this country, of which mine, no doubt, is a replica, as it bears a strong resemblance to the established portraits of Curran. Its existence does not appear to have been known to the sculptor of the medallion head of Curran on the monument in St. Patrick's, Dublin, for that was avowedly taken from the portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence. A short time before his death Curran wrote to a friend that his "entire life had been passed in a wretched futurity," but that happily he had found the remedy, and that was to "give over the folly of breathing at all." He ceased to breathe at all in Brompton, London, in the autumn of 1817; and his bones, now buried in Dublin, were laid for some years in a vault of Paddington church.

We learn from various sources that Curran was under the middle height, "very ugly," with intensely bright black eyes, perfectly straight jet-black hair, a "thick" complexion, and "a protruding under lip on a retreating face." Croker, speaking of his oratory, said, "You began by being prejudiced against him by his bad character and ill-looking appearance, like the devil with his tail cut off, and you were at last carried away by his splendid language and by the power of his metaphor."

Dr. Wilde, afterwards Sir William Wilde, published in Dublin, in 1849, a volume entitled The Closing Years of Dean Swift's Life, a very interesting book now long out of print. It is an elaborate defense of Swift's sanity, and it contains a full account of the plaster mask taken from the Dean's face "after the post-mortem examination." From this, he says, "a bust was made and placed in the museum of the university, which, notwithstanding its possessing much of the cadaverous appearance, is, we are strongly inclined to believe, the best likeness of Swift-during, at least, the last few years of his life-now in existence." Speaking of this mask, Sir Walter Scott wrote, "The expression of countenance is most unequivocally maniacal, and one side of the mouth (the left) hor

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ribly contorted downwards, as if convulsed by pain." Dr. Wilde, on the other hand, said, "The expression is remarkably placid; but there is an evident drag in the left side of the mouth, exhibiting a paralysis of the facial muscles of the right side, which, we have reason to believe, existed for some years before his death."

Dr. Wilde compared this cast of Swift's face, taken immediately after death, with the cast and drawings of his skull made in 1835, ninety years later, when the bodies of Swift and Stella were exhumed, and their craniums examined by the phrenologists belonging to the British Association; and by careful analysis of both, he was able to satisfy himself that Swift was not "a driveller and a show" when he died, nor a madman while he lived. He gave, upon the sixty-second page of his book, a drawing of this mask in profile, and the face is certainly identical with the face in my collection. It resembles very strongly the accepted portraits of Swift, particularly the two in which he was drawn without his wig. The more familiar of these is a profile in crayon, by Barber, taken when the Dean was about sixty years of age-and eigh

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EDMUND BURKE.

JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN.

teen years before his death-which has been frequently engraved for the several editions of Lord Orrery's Remarks on the Life and Writings of Jonathan Swift, first published in 1751. The original cast was made in two parts, according to Dr. Wilde, and the difference in surface between the rough hinder part--not existing in my copy-and the smooth polished anterior portion, as here seen, shows at once that the back of the head was added at a later date. Two lines of writing, greatly defaced, found upon the cast attest this to be "Dean Swift taken off his.... the night of his burial, and the.... one side larger than the other in nature." In a foot-note to the second edition of his work, Dr. Wilde said, "The original mask remained in the museum T.C.D. [Trinity College, Dublin] till within a few years ago [1849], when it was accidentally destroyed." The history of this replica-for replica it certainly is-before it came into my hands I have never been able to trace. It found its way into the shop of a dealer in curiosities, who knew nothing of its pedigree, not even whose face it was; and from him I bought it for a few shillings. It is one of the most interesting of the collection, and perhaps the most valuable, because the

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die, "like Swift, at the top first." Sir Walter Scott's decay was a mental decay in the beginning of his last illness; but happily for him, and for his family, the axe was laid at the root of the grand old monarch of the forest of Scottish letters before the upper branches were permitted to go to utter ruin.

There exist at Abbotsford two masks of its first laird-a life-mask and a deathmask. Of the former very little is known, except that it is said to have been made in Paris. The latter was exhibited at the Scott centenary celebration in Edinburgh, in 1871, when it attracted a great deal of attention. They both show, as no portrait of the living man shows, except the fa

and closed his eyes. No sculptor ever marbled a more majestic image of repose."

He does not mention the taking of the death-mask, however, and nowhere alludes to it. It was made by George Bullockit is said, at the request of Dr.Spurzheimand Bullock and Chantrey both used it in modelling posthumous busts of the bard. It was loaned to Sir (then Mr.) Edwin Landseer while he was painting his fulllength portrait of Sir Walter, with the scenery of the Rhymer's Glen.

Bullock supposed that the original mould was destroyed not long after Scott's death, but Mr. Gourlay Steel, R.S.A., writes that his brother Sir John Steel, while engaged upon the monument to Lockhart at Dry

ROBERT BURNS.

burgh Abbey, some years later, came upon it accidentally at Abbotsford, and used it in re-modelling his bust of Sir Walter for Mr. Hope-Scott.

Chantrey, in comparing the measurements of Scott's head from this mask with the measurements he had made of the head of Shakespeare on the Stratford monument-which latter he had always considered unnatural, if not impossible-found, to his great surprise, that they were almost identical in height from the eyes up; and in each case he noticed the very unusual length of the upper lip. It was this domelike feature of Scott's head which inspired one of his jocular friends in Edinburgh to hail him once, when he dragged himself up the stairs of the Session House with his hat in his hand, as "Peveril of the Peak."

When Carlyle last saw Scott-they never met to exchange a word-it was in one of the streets of Edinburgh, late in Scott's life; and, "Alas!" wrote the younger man, "his fine Scottish face, with its shaggy honesty and goodness, was all worn with care, the joy all fled from it, and ploughed deep with labor and sorrow."

Eighteen months after the death of Scott, the Burns mausoleum at Dumfries was opened to receive the remains of Burns's widow, when, ac

cording to the appendix to the first edition of Allan Cunningham's Life of Burns, then going through the press, a cast was taken from the cranium of the poet. Mr. Archibald Blacklock, surgeon of Dumfries, who made the examination, declared that "the cranial bones were perfect in every respect, and were firmly held together by their sutures," etc., etc. Unfortunately there is no cast of the head of the poet, living or dead, except this one here shown of his fleshless skull. George Combe, who received a replica of it from the executors of Mrs. Burns, presented a number of wood-cuts from it, in various positions, in his Phrenology, and he was very fond of using it to point his morals.

He also frequently reproduced the skull of Robert the Bruce, the hero of Bannockburn, shown here as well, although he failed to explain the mystery of its existence in plaster. The skeletons of Bruce and his Queen were discovered early in the present century by a party of workmen who were making certain repairs in the Abbey Church of Dunfermline. The skull was in an excellent state of preservation.

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THE GENERAL: "I've brought you a new book, Aunt Emily-by the new French academician-I'm told it's very good-but I've not read it myself-and so I'm not sure it's quite-a-quite correct, you know. AUNT EMILY: "My dear boy-I'm ninety-six, and I'll risk it!"

-Drawn by GEORGE DU MAURIER.

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