The Last Attempt:

They are the last flicker , the lust scintillation from the great luminary , visible but for a moment , then utterly obscured iu Hie rapidl y approaching nig ht . Sad , sad and deeply touching-are these hist lines wrung from the overwrought brain of one of Scotland's most gifted sons , who sank into a premature grave in his stupendous effort :- ; to work off his liabilities . It is touching to read how he had to be hurried home from ihe Continent , and how he arrived in London

about the middle oi : June , more dead than alive ,-having escaped tho fate of d ying in a foreign land like his predo cesscrs , Fielding and Smollett . How he lay for three weeks in the Sir James ' s Hotel , Jormyn Street , in an almost continuous state ol : unconsciousness , exciting iLie sympathy of all classes ot the community , who orowdod flic street and made daily inquiries as to tho state of his health . How lie was conveyed on board a steamer earl y iu July , and conveyed to his native city in a slate of stupor , how he was driven from

Edinburgh in Ids carriage ro his romantic sea ! : on the hanks of the Tweed , and how , as he approached thai dear spot , his wandering eye recognised the . familiar scenes and Ins mind again awoke if 1 comparative clearness . These latter days are full of touching incidents . Once more did he endeavour to wield the pen , having insisted noon , being hvkon to his desk to write , and his daughter Sophia having placed a pen in his hand , the quill foil from his paralysed fingers and dropped upon the paper . Realising his incapacity , ho burst

into tears . Kindl y sleep came to his relief , and for a while lie forgot his grief in slumber , onl y to awaken again to a remembrance of his p itiful condition , upon which he raised himself in his chair and patheticall y cried , "Friends , don't let mo expose myself—get me to bed—that ' s the onl y p lace . " He died on tho 21 st September , 1 S 32 , aged sixi . v-onc rears .

There is always something sad iu witnessing the breaking up of the physical powers , and in thinking of what has been " so sad , so strange , the clays that aro no more ; but there is something more inexpressibly sad in seeing the gradual breaking up of the mental power . To die in harness is not such a hard lot . Talfonr ' d . Thackeray , Dickens , Hood , Bronte , Gashed , and many more have died with their nienhil power undiminished , and left fragments of work of great promise , but to die in harness , and have your last days embittered

by pain and poverty , as did Fielding . Smollett , and Goldsmith , is a very hard and a very sad lot ; hut to die before your time , to die mentall y while yon -yet live , is the saddest of all . The story of Sterne ' sf death is one of tho most painful pages of history ; sad , too , is i . hc record of the hist days of Kwiit , but I think my readers will agree with me thai the premature decay of the mental faculties , as exhibited in this melanchol y memorial of one of onr most gifted countrymen , this last attempt of a once brilliant mind , is tho saddest phase of all , betokening the rapid approach of that night in which no man can work . The pathos in the last lines is touching in the extreme .

"The blood grows ivre'm , rhe nerves expand , The stit ' t ' ened lingers tah : c the pen ! " And then the reaction , darkness dense and impenetrable . Truly may we say , with Shakespeare , "It is too Iavo : tho life of all his blood Is touched corruptibly ; and his pure brain ( Which sonic suppose the soul ' s frail dwelling-house ) Both , by the Idle comments that it makes , Fortell the ending of mortality . "