will make it one of the greatest blessings we can receive. The parable of the "Talents" intimates that the greater improvements we acquire and use in this life, the grander will be the benediction conferred in the next.* LETTER XXVII. Inquiry into the State of the Mind at the Time of our Earthly Death.And on the Indications then given of the Immortality of its Nature. -Illustrative Incidents from the Dying Moments of many Persons more or less distinguished. MY DEAR SON, Considering our vital and intellectual self the spirit which feels and thinks in all that we are conscious of, which acts in all that we do, and which constitutes our individualized personality, to be an immortal principle of being-we may expect not only that longevity should not impair or diminish it, but that death should also be unable to destroy it. Death must be only a medium to a new scene of life, as birth visibly is. It will be congruous with the eternal durability of our nature, that, both in the commencement of its entrance into its earthly drama, and at its exit in the last scene of its appearance, it should give some tokens of its imperishable essence, and indicate that it is itself independent of the approaching mortality of its united but temporary body. To ascertain what is true on this interesting point, I have examined the state of individual minds as their last moments approached, as it has been described, to see what information could be drawn from it that would illustrate the inquiry; and I will submit to your consideration some of the most remark * You will be gratified by a passage in Sir Humphrey Davy's letter to one of his early home friends. "We can trace back our existence almost to a point. Former time presents us with trains of thoughts gradually diminishing to nothing. But our ideas of futurity are perpetually expanding. Our desires and our hopes, even when modified by our fears, seem to grasp at immensity. This alone would be sufficient to prove the PROGRESSIVENESS of our nature; and that this little earth is but a point, from which we start towards a perfection that is bounded only by infinity."-Dr. Davy's Memoirs of his Brother, vol. i., p. 130. VOL. III.-Y able of those which have been delineated to us with sufficient minuteness. My first point of investigation has been to know whether the dying individual has a perception or a feeling that he is departing from us; and from what I have read and heard, it appears to me that, in general, however near death is, he has no sensation or belief that it is so; but that, even when he thinks he is in that state, it is an inference of his judgment, and not a feeling in his intellectual nature. This result corresponds with the soul's essential immortality, and is a testimony to it. Being an undying principle of life, it never feels itself to be actually extinguishing; but, on the contrary, when all its friends have given up every hope of its surviving longer, the dying person does not think he will die, but has the hope of recovery till all visible sensibility and life have ceased. I have seen this on deathbeds which I have attended, and I believe it is a common fact in those whose disease is consumption, that they are sanguine of their restoration to the last. Mr. Gibbon exhibited this undying feeling of his mind at the time that the agency of death was upon him; and the day before it closed his earthly life, he expressed his belief that he should enjoy it many years more.* Mr. Pitt expired on the 23d of January, 1806, in his fortyseventh year, on the anniversary of the day on which, twentyfive years before, he had become a member of the British Parliament. He went to Bath for relief when his fatal illness came upon him, and returning to Putney Hill, wrote to the Marquis of Wellesley a letter expressing his belief that he was recovering. He received his noble friend with the en * Lord Sheffield left him on the afternoon of the 14th January, 1794, and mentions that, on the next day, "at one o'clock, he received a visit of an hour from Madame de Sylvie; and at three, his friend Mr. Crawfurd called, and stayed with him till five o'clock. They talked, as usual, on various subjects: and twenty hours before his death, Mr. Gibbon happened to fall into a conversation with him on the probable duration of life. He said that he thought himself a good life for ten, twelve, or, perhaps, twenty years. About six he ate the wing of a chicken, and drank three glasses of Madeira." He died soon after noon on the following day. Lord Sheffield adds-" The valet de chambre observed that Mr. Gibbon did not, at any time, show the least sign of alarm or apprehension of death; and it does not appear that he ever thought himself in danger." -Gibbon's Miscell. Works, vol. i., p. 422-5. The marquis has attached this note to his deeply interesting account ergy of a spirit that had no feeling of advancing death, although his bodily appearance convinced the marquis that it was near.* He died in a few days after this letter and the interview. It is obvious from both, that Mr. Pitt felt as an immortal being would feel, though his spirit was about to be separated from its body. He had that sensation of vitality which animated Mr. Pope when he inferred from it his own perpetuation of existence.t Óliver Cromwell, to his latest moments, had the same strong sensation of life, and would not believe that he was near his departure, and expressed warmly his conviction of his safety to his medical attendants, persuading himself that he had also a Divine sanction for his confidence.‡ The Duke of York, our present sovereign's brother, in his mortal illness, when all saw that he was dying, was so little conscious of being in that state from his internal impressions, of Mr. Pitt, printed in the "Quarterly Review," No. 114. "Putney Hill, Sunday, January 12th, 1806.-My dear Wellesley-On my arrival here last night, I received, with inexpressible pleasure, your most friendly and affectionate letter. If I was not strongly advised to keep out of London till I have acquired a little more strength, I would have come up immediately, for the purpose of seeing you at the first possible moment. it is, I am afraid I must trust to your goodness to give me the satisfaction of seeing you here the first hour you can spare for that purpose. I am recovering rather slowly from a series of stomach complaints, followed by severe attacks of gout; but I believe 1 am now in a way of real amendment," As The marquis says, "I was received by him with his usual kindness and good-humour. His spirits appeared to be as high as I had ever seen them; and his understanding quite as vigorous and clear. But, notwithstanding Mr. Pitt's kindness and cheerfulness, I saw that the hand of death was fixed upon him."—Ib., 491. "In May, 1744, Mr. Pope evidently grew worse and more infirm. One day he said to Spence, I am so certain of the soul's being immortal, that I seem to feel it within me, as it were, by intuition."-Dr. Wharton, Clissold's "Last Hours," p. 523. "After making his will, the next morning early, Cromwell asked a young physician who had sat up with him why he looked so sad. When answer was made that so it became any one who had the weighty care of his life and health upon him. Ye physicians,' said the protector, 'think I shall die. I tell you I shall not die this time; I am sure of it. Do not think I am mad; I speak the words of truth, upon surer grounds than your Galen or Hippocrates furnish you with. God Almighty himself hath given that answer, not to my prayers alone but to the prayers of those who entertain a stricter commerce and greater interest with him. Go on cheerfully, banishing all sadness, and deal with me as you would with a serving man.'"- Sir H. Halford's "Deaths of Eminent Persons," p. 14, from Dr. Bates's Elenchus. He died soon after, on 3d September, 1658, the anniversary of his victory at Dunbar, aged fifty-nine that, although apprized of the medical opinion, yet he thought that he was getting better.* In some cases the sense and appearance of life become even stronger than usual as its union with the body is severing. This was the case with Bishop Hildesley, and I believe it is not uncommon.t Even many deranged persons recover their complete sanity as death advances upon them—a strong indication that such maladies are diseases of the functions of the frame, and not of the intellectual spirit, and a testimony of the distinctness and several natures of the soul and body. That the mind retains and displays its full powers when the agency of death is decidedly operating to separate it from its body, just as a living and thinking spirit would do that was different from it, and only temporarily connected with it, we have abundant instances. I will only notice a few that happen to occur to me. Mr. Burke's only son died before his father; but in his dying hour manifested himself to be complete in his intellectual sensibilities and energies. Mr. Fox also died * He died 5th January, 1827. His last illness came upon him in the preceding summer. At the end of December his legs resumed the appearance of mortification, and he was informed of the fatal prospect. He confessed to Sir H. Taylor that he had not expected such an issue. "I am not afraid of dying; I trust I have done my duty; I have endeavoured to do so; I know that my faults have been many, but God is merciful; I bow with submission to his will. I have at least not to reproach myself with not having done all I could to avert this crisis, but I own it has come upon me by surprise. I knew that my case had not ceased to be free from danger; I have been always told so, but I did not suspect immediate danger." On the 28th, after taking the sacrament with the Princess Sophia, Sir Herbert says, "He asked me whether his physicians thought much worse of him, for he really felt better." It was not till the day before his death that he had the conviction of his approaching departure, when he said in a steady, firm tone of voice, "I am now dying." -Sir H. Taylor's Account. He died in 1772, aged seventy-four. "It is remarkable," says Mr. Moore, "that for a fortnight before the bishop died, he was apparently in better health and spirits than he had been for some months preceding."Clissold, p. 526. "In June he was returned to parliament for Malton, and appointed Irish secretary to Earl Fitzwilliam; but consumption came rapidly upon him, and he died on the 2d August. On the morning of his death, the lamentations of his father and mother reached him where he lay. He rose from his bed, and desired his servants to support him towards the room where they were sitting in tears. He endeavoured to enter into a conversation with his father; but grief keeping Mr. Burke silent, the son said, 'I am under no terror; I feel myself better, and in spirits; and yet my heart flutters, I know not why. Pray talk to me, sir! talk of religion; talk of morality; talk, if you will, of indifferent subjects,' with his mental principle unimpaired.* So Addison, notwithstanding the infirmities of his frame under which he was sinking. Mrs. Rowe, whose writings so much pleased our forefathers, was in all her vital power two hours before she was found dead; and the celebrated Boerhaave contemplated the perceptible difference between his mind and his body in his last illness as being like a philosophical experiment to him, that his intellectual self would not perish with his bodily dissolution. Our acute-minded Berkeley had no anticipating "Then turning round, he exclaimed, 'What noise is that? Does it rain? No; it is the rustling of the wind through the trees;' and immediately, with a voice as clear as ever in his life, and with a more than common grace of action, he repeated, from Adam's morning hymn— 66 'His praise, ye winds! that from four quarters blow, Breathe soft or loud; and wave your tops, ye pines! "He began again, and again pronounced the lines with the same happiness of elocution and gesture, waved his hand in sign of worship, and, worshipping, sank into the arms of his parents as in a profound and sweet sleep"--dead.-Letter from Dr. Lawrence, dated Aug. 4, 1797. *"Richard Wilson said, Fox's last words were, I die happy;' then looking at his wife, I pity you.' He retained his perfect judgment till within a quarter of an hour of his death. His mind then vacillated."Mr. Green's Diary, in Gent. Mag., 1834, p. 477. † Dr. Young has mentioned the circumstance, in his "Essay on Original Composition," of Addison. When he felt that life was departing, he sent for his lady's son, the Earl of Warwick, to his deathbed as his last opportunity of reclaiming him from his irregularities. The earl, with great kindness of manner, desired to hear his last counsels. "İ have sent for you, my lord, that you may see in what peace a Christian can die," was Addison's last observation; expressing it in the completeness of his own mind in all its religious sentiments and belief. "She was sixty-three, and died 20th February, 1737. On the day on which she was seized by death, she seemed to those about her to be in perfect health and vigour, and in the evening, about eight o'clock, she conversed with a friend with all her wonted vivacity, after which she retired to her chamber. At about ten, her servant, hearing some noise in her mistress's chamber, ran instantly to it, and found her fallen off her chair on the floor, speechless, and in the agonies of death. She had the immediate assistance of a physician and surgeon, but she soon expired."-Dr. Gibbon's Account of her. "Herman Boerhaave died in his seventieth year, 23d September, 1738. His fatal distemper, which began in the preceding year, was attended with periods of great pain and lowness of spirits. About three weeks before his death this great chymist, as he was sitting without door with his wife and family, was visited by a friend, to whom he mentioned that he had never doubted of the spiritual and immaterial nature of the soul. He stated that he had lately had a kind of experimental certainty of the distinction between corporeal and thinking subjects, which mere reason and philosophy cannot afford. He had had opportunities of contemplating the wonderful and inexplicable union of |