Part 15
QUARLES (Francis, quaint English poet, author of "Emblems"), 1592-1644. "_What I cannot utter with my mouth, accept, Lord, from my heart and soul._"
QUIN (James, actor), 1693-1766. "_I could wish this tragic scene were over, but I hope to go through it with becoming dignity._"
QUICK (John, actor), 1748-1831. "_Is this death?_"
RABELAIS (François), about 1483-1553. "_Let down the curtain, the farce is over._" Some say his last words were, "I am going to the great perhaps."
RALEIGH or RAWLEIGH (Sir Walter), 1552-1618. "_This is a sharp medicine, but a sure remedy for all evils!_" These words he said upon the scaffold, when permitted to feel of the edge of the axe. Some say that later he was asked which way he chose to place himself on the block, and that he replied, "So the heart be right, it is no matter which way the head lies." Others say that his last words were these addressed to the hesitating headsman, "Why dost thou not strike? Strike!"
The lovers of tobacco will remember that it was Sir Walter Raleigh who introduced their "delightful weed" into Europe. So fond was he of the weed that he used it upon the scaffold. The snuff-box out of which he took a pinch just before his head rested upon the block was in constant use by the Duke of Sussex, and was disposed of at his sale for £6.
Mr. Van Klaës whose will is celebrated all over Holland was not to be behind Sir Walter Raleigh in his devotion to tobacco. After his bequests to relatives and charities, he has this paragraph in his will:
"I wish every smoker in the kingdom to be invited to my funeral in every way possible, by letter, circular and advertisement. Every smoker who takes advantage of the invitation shall receive as a present ten pounds of tobacco, and two pipes on which shall be engraved my name, my crest, and the date of my death. The poor of the neighborhood who accompany my bier shall receive every year on the anniversary of my death a large package of tobacco. I make the condition that all those who assist at my funeral, if they wish to partake of the benefits of my will, must smoke without interruption during the entire ceremony. My body shall be placed in a coffin lined throughout with the wood of my old Havana cigar-boxes. At the foot of the coffin shall be placed a box of French tobacco called _Caporal_ and a package of our old Dutch tobacco. At my side place my favorite pipe and a box of matches, ... for one never knows what may happen. When the bier rests in the vault, all the persons in the funeral procession are requested to cast upon it the ashes of their pipes, as they pass it on their departure from the grounds."
The wishes of the testator were fulfilled to the letter. The funeral went off gloriously in dense clouds of smoke. Mr. Van Klaës' cook, Gertrude, to whom was left in a codicil to the will a large sum of money on condition she should overcome her aversion to tobacco, walked in the funeral procession with a cigarette in her mouth.
RANDOLPH (John, an able but eccentric American statesman), 1773-1833. "_Write that word 'Remorse;' show it to me._" These words rest upon doubtful authority.
RAPHAEL (Sanzio, most illustrious of painters. "The Transfiguration" at Rome, and the "Madonna di San Sisto" at Dresden are accounted his master-pieces), 1483-1520. "_Happy--._'
"Once again Raphael revived, and, supported by two friends, arose and looked around with wide-open eyes. 'Whence comes the sunshine?' murmured he.
"'Raphael,' cried I, and extended both hands toward him, 'do you recognize me?'
"For a moment it seemed as if he had not heard me, then he spoke again, and the holy calm of his expression, in spite of the death-struggle, bore testimony to his words, 'Happy--.' He tried to finish the sentence, but could not. He never uttered another word, but it was full night when a voice broke through the long stillness: 'Raphael is dead!'" _Cardinal Bibbiena in a letter to his niece Maria di Bibbiena._
RAVAILLAC (François, the assassin of Henry IV. of France), 1578-1610. "_I receive absolution upon this condition._" Ravaillac asked absolution of Dr. Filesac, who answered, "We are forbidden to give it in the case of a crime of high treason, unless the guilty one reveals his abettors and accomplices." Ravaillac replied, "I have none. It is I alone that did it. Give me a conditional absolution. You cannot refuse this." "Well, then," said Dr. Filesac, "I give it to you, but if the contrary be true, instead of absolution I pronounce your eternal damnation. Look to it." Ravaillac answered, "I receive absolution upon this condition."
On May 27, 1610, Ravaillac was declared by the Parliament guilty of divine and human high treason; condemned to have his flesh torn with hot pincers and the wounds filled with melted lead, boiling oil, etc.; to have his right hand, holding the regicidal knife, burned in a fire of sulphur; to be afterward torn to pieces alive by four horses, to have his members reduced to ashes and the ashes thrown to the winds. The same decree ordered that the house in which he was born be demolished; that his father and his mother leave the kingdom in fifteen days, with orders not to return, under penalty of being hung and strangled; and finally that his brothers, sisters, uncles, etc., give up the name of Ravaillac and take another, under pain of the same penalties.
Ravaillac, most fearless of fanatics and devotees, said, when interrogated before Parliament as to his estate and calling, "I teach children to read, write, and pray to God." At his third examination, he wrote beneath the signature which he had affixed to his testimony the following distich:
"Que toujours, dans mon coeur, Jésus soit le vainqueur!"
and a member of Parliament exclaimed on reading it, "Where the devil will religion lodge next!"[42]
[42] John Chastel was torn to pieces sixteen years before, for attempting the life of the same monarch. Salcede, the Spaniard, endeavored to assassinate Henri III., and was accordingly dismembered. Nicholas de Salvado and Balthazar de Gerrard suffered in the same way for attacking William, Prince of Orange. Livy records that Mettius Suffetius was dismembered by chariots for deserting the Roman cause.
RAYMOND (John Howard, President of Vassar College), 1814--. "_How easy--how easy--how easy to glide from work here to the work----_" _there_, he evidently wished to add, but his voice failed him.
READE (Charles, author of "Peg Woffington," "The Cloister and the Hearth," "Very Hard Cash," "Griffith Gaunt" and "Put Yourself in His Place"), 1814-1884. "_Amazing, amazing glory! I am having Paul's understanding._" He referred to 2 Cor. xii. 1-4, which had previously been a subject of conversation with a relative. In the epitaph which he wrote for his own tombstone, he shows his complete reliance for future happiness on the merits and mediation of Christ:
HERE LIE, BY THE SIDE OF HIS BELOVED FRIEND, THE MORTAL REMAINS OF CHARLES READE, DRAMATIST, NOVELIST AND JOURNALIST. HIS LAST WORDS TO MANKIND ARE ON THIS STONE.
"I hope for a resurrection, not from any power in nature, but from the will of the Lord God Omnipotent, who made nature and me. He created me out of nothing, which nature could not do. He can restore man from the dust, which nature cannot.
"And I hope for holiness and happiness in a future life, not for any thing I have said or done in this body, but from the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ.
"He has promised his intercession to all who seek him, and he will not break his word; that intercession, once granted, cannot be rejected: for he is God, and his merits infinite; a man's sins are but human and finite.
"'Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.' 'If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins.'"
RENAN (Ernest, Orientalist and critic), 1823-1892. "_I have done my work. It is the most natural thing in the world to die; let us accept the Laws of the Universe--the heavens and the earth remain._"
Some authorities give his last words thus: "Let us submit to the Laws of Nature of which we are one of the manifestations. The heavens and the earth abide."
He began to study for the priesthood, but renounced that profession because he doubted the truth of the orthodox creed. He displayed much learning in his "General History of the Semitic Languages," was admitted into the Academy of Inscriptions in 1856, and was sent to Syria in 1860 to search for relics of ancient learning and civilization. Soon after his return he was appointed professor of Hebrew in the College of France, but was suspended in 1862, in deference to the will of those who considered him unsound in faith. He admits the excellence of the Christian religion, but discredits its supernatural origin and rejects the miracles.--_Lippincott's Biographical Dictionary._
REYNOLDS (Sir Joshua, celebrated portrait painter), 1723-1792. "_I have been fortunate in long good health and constant success, and I ought not to complain. I know that all things on earth must have an end, and now I am come to mine._"
RICHELIEU (Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal and French statesman), 1585-1642. "_Absolutely, and I pray God to condemn me, if I have had any other aim than the welfare of God and the state_," in reply to the question whether he pardoned his enemies.
His last words are sometimes incorrectly given thus: "I have no enemies except those of the State."
RICHMOND (Leigh, a clergyman of the English Church, and author of "Annals of the Poor" and "The Fathers of the English Church"), 1772-1827. "_Brother, brother, strong evidences, nothing but strong evidences will do in such an hour as this. I have looked here and looked there for them, and all have failed me, and so I cast myself on the sovereign, free and full grace of God in the covenant by Jesus Christ; and there, brother, there I have found peace._"
RICHTER (Jean Paul Frederich, German author), 1763-1825. "_My beautiful flowers, my lovely flowers!_"
His wife brought him a wreath of flowers that a lady had sent him, for every one wished to add some charm to his last days. As he touched them carefully, for he could neither see nor smell them, he seemed to rejoice in the images of the flowers in his mind, for he said repeatedly, "My beautiful flowers, my lovely flowers!"
Although his friends sat around the bed, as he imagined it was night, they conversed no longer; he arranged his arms as if preparing for repose, which was to be to him the repose of death, and soon sank into a tranquil sleep.... At length his respiration became less regular, but his features always calmer, more heavenly. A slight convulsion passed over the face; the physician cried out, "That is death!" and all was quiet. The spirit had departed.
ROBERTSON (Frederick William, an English clergyman of singular purity and depth of religious feeling, and of great ability), 1816-1853. "_I cannot bear it; let me rest. I must die. Let God do his work._"
A member of his congregation, a chemist, asked him to look at his galvanic apparatus. He took the ends of the wire, completed the circuit, experiencing the tingling. He then held the end of the wire to the back of the head and neck, without a single sensation being elicited. Then he touched his forehead for a second. "Instantly a crashing pain shot through, as if my skull was stove in, and a bolt of fire were burning through and through." In the same letter he writes, "My work is done." Some hope might have been entertained if he could have had a curate to help him with his work. But the then Vicar of Brighton, rather an unsympathetic man, refused to let him have the curate on whom his heart was set. So he sank, unrelieved, into death. The dark secrets of the hospital of torture hardly reveal greater suffering than Robertson endured in those last hours. When they sought to change his position, he said, "I cannot bear it; let me rest. I must die. Let God do his work." These were his last words.
He was only thirty-seven years old when he died; an age when he had not reached the climax of his powers, or the complete development of his character and views. It is an interesting circumstance that after his death an inhabitant of Brighton who had stood aloof from his teaching during his lifetime, read his sermons and was so struck with the beauty of his teaching that in gratitude he placed a marble bust of the great preacher in the Pavilion. _London Society._
For six years he continued to preach sermons, the like of which, for blending of delicacy and strength of thought, poetic beauty and homely lucidity of speech, had perhaps never been heard before in England. Robertson was unhappily (for his comfort) not very "orthodox;" consequently he was long misunderstood, and vilified by the "professedly religious portion of society;" but so true, so beautiful was his daily life and conversation that he almost outlived those pious calumnies, and his death (from consumption) threw the whole town in mourning.--_Chambers' Encyclopædia._
ROB ROY (whose original name was Macgregor, was a friend and follower of the "Pretender" in the Rebellion of 1715. He is the hero of one of Scott's novels), about 1660-1743.
Tradition relates that Rob Roy was visited on his death-bed by a person with whom he was at enmity, and that as soon as the visitor, whom he treated with a cold, haughty civility during their short conference, had departed, the dying man said, "Now all is over--let the piper play '_Ha til mi tulidh_' (we return no more)"--and he is said to have expired before the dirge was finished.--_Francis Jacox._
ROYER-COLLARD (Pierre Paul, French philosopher and statesman), 1763-1845. "_There is nothing solid and substantial in the world but religious ideas._"
ROGERS (John, Vicar of St. Pulchers, and reader of St. Paul's in London. He was burnt at the stake),--1555. "_Lord, receive my spirit._"
ROLAND (Marie Jeanne Philipon, Madame. "The Spirit of the Girondin Party"), 1754-1793. "_Go first; I can at least spare you the pain of seeing my blood flow._"
When she arrived in front of the Statue of Liberty, she bent her head to it, exclaiming, "Oh Liberty, how many crimes are committed in thy name!" At the foot of the scaffold she said to her companion, an old and timid man, whom she had been encouraging on the way, "Go first; I can at least spare you the pain of seeing my blood flow."
ROMAINE (William, English theologian, for thirty years rector of Blackfriars), 1714-1795. "_Holy, holy, holy, blessed Lord Jesus! to Thee be endless praise!_"
ROSA (Salvator, Italian painter), 1615-1673. "_To judge by what I now endure, the hand of death grasps me sharply._" Last recorded words.
ROSSETTI (Dante Gabriel, English painter and poet, leader in the Pre-Raphaelite movement), 1828-1882. "_I think I shall die to-night._" These are his last recorded words.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti is buried near the waves of his beloved German Ocean in the churchyard of Birchington, a small village on the Isle of Thanet. He died in 1882 at his bungalow, on a cliff near by, and his grave is marked by a tall Celtic cross of stone, carved with designs by Ford Madox Brown. The head and arms of the cross are decorated with a spray ending in leaves, and two leafy branches right and left. The shaft has four panels, with reliefs. The upper compartment has a figure of Christ, fronting, and two figures right and left in profile. The panel below has a kneeling bull, with wings, to represent the Evangelist. Below that is a kneeling painter, with canvas and easel before him and his palette on his arm. The lowest panel is filled with a decorative scroll. There is a stained-glass window to his memory in the little church.
ROUSSEAU (Jean Jacques, the famous author of "La Nouvelle Héloïse," "Émile," "Du Contrat Social" and "Confessions"), 1712-1778. "_Throw up the window that I may see once more the magnificent scene of nature._"
RUTHERFORD (Rev. Samuel), 1695-1779. "_If he should slay me ten thousand times, ten thousand times I'll trust him. I feel, I feel, I believe in joy, and rejoice; I feed on manna. O for arms to embrace him! O for a well-tuned harp!_"
RUTHERFORD (Rev. Thomas), 1712-1771. "_He has indeed been a precious Christ to me; and now I feel him to be my rock, my strength, my rest, my hope, my joy, my all in all._"
SABATIER (Raphael Bienvenu, French surgeon), 1732-1811. "_Contemplate the state in which I am fallen, and learn to die_," said to his son.
He was ashamed of his bodily infirmities and of his approaching mortality.
SAMSON (one of the judges of Israel, of the tribe of Dan, and the son of Manoah), about B. C. 1155. "_Let me die with the Philistines._" After performing several wonderful deeds of strength, he was made prisoner, and deprived of sight by the Philistines, a great number of whom he subsequently destroyed, along with himself, by pulling down the temple in which they were assembled. _See Judges, xvi._
SAND ("George," pseudonym of Madame Dudevant), 1804-1876. "_Laissez la verdure_"--meaning, "Leave the tomb green, do not cover it over with bricks or stone."
SANDERSON (Robert, English prelate, chaplain to Charles I., and later Bishop of London), 1587-1663. "_My heart is fixed, O God! my heart is fixed where true joy is to be found._"
SARPI (Fra Paolo, author of "History of the Council of Trent," and opponent of the doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope), 1552-1623. "_Be thou everlasting._" These words were spoken in reference to his country, Venice.
SAUNDERS (Lawrence, suffered martyrdom during the reign of Queen Mary). "_Welcome the cross of Christ, welcome everlasting life._"
Away went Mr. Saunders, with a merry courage, toward the fire. He fell to the ground and prayed; he rose up again and took the stake to which he should be chained in his arms and kissed it, saying: "Welcome the cross of Christ, welcome everlasting life." Being fastened to the stake he fell full sweetly asleep in the Lord. _Fox's "Book of Martyrs."_
SAVONAROLA (Girolamo, celebrated preacher and political, as well as religious, reformer of Florence), 1452-1498. "_O Florence, what hast thou done to-day?_" He was strangled and burnt by the commissioners of the Pope, May 23, 1498. His last words are sometimes given thus: "The Lord has suffered as much for me."
While he and his companions, all three barely covered by their tunics, with naked feet and arms bound, were being slowly led from the ringhiera to the gibbet, the dregs of the populace were allowed to assail them with vile words and viler acts. Savonarola endured this bitter martyrdom with unshaken serenity. One bystander, stirred with compassion, approached him and said a few comforting words, to which he benignantly replied: "At the last hour, God alone can give mortals comfort." A certain priest, named Nerotto, asked him, "in what spirit dost thou bear martyrdom?" He said: "The Lord hath suffered as much for me." He then kissed the crucifix, and his voice was heard no more. _Villari: "Life and Times of Savonarola."_
SAX (Hermann Maurice, Marshal of France), 1696-1750. "_The dream has been short, but it has been beautiful._"
SCARRON (Paul, the creator of French burlesque), 1610-1660. "_Ah! mes enfants, you cannot cry as much for me as I have made you laugh in my time!_" Some say that a few moments later he added, "I never thought that it was so easy a matter to laugh at the approach of death."
The life of Scarron was one of extreme wretchedness. He was, like Heine, a miserable paralytic; his form, to use his own words, "had become bent like a Z." "My legs," he says, "first made an obtuse angle with my thighs, then a right and at last an acute angle; my thighs made another with my body. My head is bent upon my chest; my arms are contracted as well as my legs, and my fingers as well as my arms. I am, in truth, a pretty complete abridgment of human misery." At the time of his marriage (to the beautiful and gifted Mademoiselle d'Aubigné, afterward Madame de Maintenon, the wife for thirty years of Louis XIV.) he could only move with freedom his hand, tongue and eyes. His days were passed in a chair with a hood, and so completely was he the abridgment of man he describes himself that his wife had to kneel to look in his face. He could not be moved without screaming from pain, nor sleep without opium. The epitaph which he wrote on himself is touching from its truth:
Tread softly--make no noise To break his slumbers deep; Poor Scarron here enjoys His first calm night of sleep. --_Russell: Library Notes._
SCHILLER (Friedrich, "the only German poet who can contest the supremacy of Goethe"), 1759-1805. "_Many things are growing plain and clear to my understanding._"
Of his friends and family he took a touching but tranquil farewell; he ordered that his funeral should be private, without pomp or parade. Some one inquiring how he felt, he said, "Calmer and calmer;" simple but memorable words, expressive of the mild heroism of the man. About six he sank into a deep sleep; once for a moment he looked up with a lively air and said, "Many things are growing plain and clear to my understanding." Again he closed his eyes, and his sleep deepened and deepened till it changed into the sleep from which there is no awakening, and all that remained of Schiller was a lifeless form soon to be mingled with the sods of the valley.--_Carlyle's "Life of Schiller."_
Dunzer says, in his "Life of Schiller": "During Schiller's delirium, from May 5th to May 9th, 1805, he repeated passages from his 'Demetrius,' and before falling asleep he called out, 'Is that your hell? Is that your heaven?' and then looked upward with a calm smile: '_Liebe, gute_' (Dear, good one), addressed to his wife, were the last words he uttered."
Schiller's last words are sometimes given thus: "_Einen Blick in die Sonne._"
SCHIMMELPENNINCK (Mary Anne, author of "Memoirs of Port-Royal"), 1778-1856. "_O, I hear such beautiful voices, and the children's are the loudest._"
SCHLEGEL (Karl Wilhelm Friedrich, von, German philosopher and author), 1772-1829. "_But the consummate and perfect knowledge--_"
SCHLEIERMACHER (Friedrich Ernst Daniel, distinguished German pulpit orator and theologian), 1768-1834. "_Now I can hold out here no longer. Lay me in a different posture._"