After residing for some months at Rome, he wished to quit it and establish himself at Geneva, and arrived at the latter place on the 28th of May, 1829. "At four o'clock he dined, ate heartily, was unusually cheerful, and joked with the waiter about the cookery of the fish, which he appeared particularly to admire; and desired, that, as long as he remained at the hotel, he might be daily supplied with every possible variety that the lake afforded. He drank tea at eleven, and having directed that the feather-bed should be removed, retired to rest at twelve. "His servant, who slept in a bed parallel to his own, in the same alcove, was, however, very shortly called to attend him, and he desired that his brother might be summoned. I am informed, that, on Dr. Davy's entering the room, he said, 'I am dying,' or words to that effect, and when all is over, I desire that no disturbance of any kind may be made in the house; lock the door, and let every one retire quietly to his apartment.' He expired at a quarter before three o'clock without a struggle." His remains were interred, with every possible mark of respect from the magistrates, philosophical professors, and the English residents at Geneva, in the cemetery at Plain-Palais, some little distance out of the walls of the town. Thus terminated the life of one of the greatest men this land, or any other ever produced, and terminated, too, at an age when it might reasonably have been hoped that many years were yet in store for him to have still farther exalted his own fame, and conferred fresh benefits on his country. It pleased Heaven to ordain it otherwise, and we must not murmur; but we cannot close the volume without one sigh of regret, one tear to the memory of days deliciously spent in his society, days which, indeed, "were to us most precious!" But we must tear ourselves from the subject. "Good night, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!" Of the manner in which Dr. Paris has executed his task, it can hardly be necessary to add any thing to the testimony we have already borne to the merit of his work; we thank him heartily for the pleasure we have derived from its perusal, and in bidding him farewell, which we do with reluctance, we cannot but earnestly recommend the "Life of Sir Humphry Davy" to our readers, and repeat our assurance, that they will find it equally entertaining, interesting, and instructive. obscurity of a lowly station, it would be pleasing, could we perceive as ardent a tone of gratitude and affection in this, his last letter to that steady friend, as animates many of his former, particularly those written about the year 1799; and that the blood, which he complains accumulated in the head, had continued to impart with undiminished fervour its former glowing feelings to the heart. Fifty-one. One lone woman's entering tread There still meet! Some with young smooth foreheads fair, All, all buried long ago! All, from under deep sea-waves, Or the flowers of foreign graves, Or the old and banner'd aisle, Where their high tombs gleam the while, Rising, wandering, floating by, Suddenly and silently, Through their earthly home and place, Wherefore, unto one alone, Are those sounds and visions known? On her soul, a baleful dower, Oh! in those deep-seeing eyes, Sunny smiles were glancing round her, Those bright looks have left no token, Seeing what none else may see- F. II. LIVING LITERARY CHARACTERS, NO. III. The Author of "Paul Pry." (With an engraved Likeness.) NOTES FOR A MEMOIR, IN A CONFIDENTIAL LETTER TO THE PUBLISHER. MY DEAR SIR; Your letter of yesterday has taken me altogether by surprise; and by pressing, as you do, one of your two requests, you impose upon me a task the most difficult I was ever, perhaps, required to undertake. Since you have obtained the consent of my old friend Mr. Pickersgill to the publication of an engraving after his portrait of me, in your "Series" in the New Monthly, I certainly shall not withhold mine; but I would have yielded it with less hesitation had you delayed your request till a few months later. It is not that I entertain the slightest objection to your obliging the Public with a notion of my "human face divine;" for some such memorandum is, I know, desired by a considerable portion of that august body, of every person who, in any way, is often, and has been long, before it—from kings, warriors, and statesmen, authors, artists, and actors, down to learned pigs and precocious children: but I wish you had not been "compelled by some misarrangement with the engravers," to think of me so early in your new enterprise, and that circumstances had allowed you to give to a dozen or a score others their due precedence. I say this, not from apprehension that you may be charged with an intention of instituting a scale of rank or merit by the order in which you are giving your subjects: your taste and sagacity, in these matters, are sufficiently well known to protect you against any such inference: I say it out of pure concern for myself. Has it escaped your observation, that you are placing me in somewhat a ludicrous point of view? You start with Sir Walter Scott; that is well done; Sir Walter is the present acknowledged head of British literature. Your next step is to the fair Author of the "Sorrows of Rosalie," and "The Undying One;" well again; that lady stands amongst the foremost in the female literary line. Now, with only one step intervening, from the Author of "Waverley" down you come to me! I sincerely hope you may not be hurt by the fall. Why not follow the example of those enterprising travellers who risk their necks ten times in climbing up Mont-Blanc, for no other purpose, that I could ever perceive, than to risk them twenty in coming down again? Why not slide down Parnassus, (as they do when they come to a pleasant Alpine slope!) instead of taking a leap? Had you done so, you would have found me, complacently waiting your arrival, very near the bottom, "Small by degrees and beautifully less!!" And, now!—having given a few minutes' consideration to the matter-I suspect, Mr. Colburn, you are indulging a sly laugh at my expense, and that you do, really, intend to classify your subjects. I find, in your letter, something about eminent authors. You cannot but be aware that in literature, as in every thing else, there are two sorts of eminence: there is the eminently good, and the eminently bad. You have a motive, then, in placing me where you do:-you |