A young lady was one morning requested by her mother to stay at home; notwithstanding which, she was tempted to go out. Upon her return to her domestic roof, she found that the parent whom she had so recently disobliged had expired in her absence. The awful spectacle of a mother’s corpse, connected with the filial disobedience which had almost immediately preceded, shook her reason from its seat, and she has ever since continued in a state of mental derangement.
It is said that the solitary hours of Charles the Ninth of France were rendered horrible by the repetition of the shrieks and cries which had assailed his ears during the massacre of St. Bartholomew.[21]
The death of Cardinal Beaufort is represented as truly terrible. The consciousness of having murdered the Duke of Gloucester is said to have rendered Beaufort’s death one of the most terrific scenes ever witnessed. Despair, in its worst form, appeared to take possession of his mind at the last moment. His concluding words, as recorded by Harpsfield,[22] were—“And must I then die? Will not all my riches save me? I could purchase the kingdom, if that would save my life. What! is there no bribing of death? When my nephew, the Duke of Bedford, died, I thought my happiness and my authority greatly increased; but the Duke of Gloucester’s death raised me in fancy to a level with kings, and I thought of nothing but accumulating still greater wealth, to purchase at last the triple crown. Alas! how are my hopes disappointed! Wherefore, O my friends, let me earnestly beseech you to pray for me, and recommend my departing soul to God!” A few minutes before his death, his mind appeared to be undergoing the tortures of the damned. He held up his two hands, and cried—“Away! away!—why thus do ye look at me?” It was evident he saw some horrible spectre by his bed-side. This last scene in the Cardinal’s life has been most ably delineated by the immortal Shakspeare:—
| Scene—The Cardinal’s Bed-chamber. | |
| Enter King Henry, Salisbury, and Warwick. | |
| King Hen. | How fares my Lord? Speak, Beaufort, to thy sovereign. |
| Cardinal. | If thou be’st Death, I’ll give thee England’s treasure, |
| Enough to purchase such another island, | |
| So thou wilt let me live, and feel no pain. | |
| King Hen. | Ah! what a sign it is of evil life |
| When death’s approach is seen so terrible. | |
| Warwick. | Beaufort, it is thy sovereign speaks to thee. |
| Cardinal. | Bring me unto my trial when you will. |
| Died he[23] not in his bed? Where should he die? | |
| Can I make men live whe’er they will or no? | |
| O, torture me no more, I will confess— | |
| Alive again? then shew me where he is: | |
| I’ll give a thousand pound to look upon him— | |
| He hath no eyes, the dust hath blinded them.— | |
| Comb down his hair; look! look! it stands upright, | |
| Like lime-twigs set to catch my winged soul.— | |
| Give me some drink, and bid the apothecary | |
| Bring the strong poison that I bought of him. | |
| King Hen. | O thou eternal Mover of the Heav’ns, |
| Look with a gentle eye upon this wretch. | |
| O, beat away the busy meddling fiend, | |
| That lays strong siege unto this wretch’s soul, | |
| And from his bosom purge this black despair. | |
| Warwick. | See how the pangs of death do make him grin! |
| Salisbury. | Disturb him not; let him pass peaceably. |
| King Hen. | Peace to his soul, if God’s good pleasure be! |
| Lord Cardinal, if thou think’st on heaven’s bliss, | |
| Lift up thy hand, make signal of thy hope.— | |
| He dies, and makes no sign—O God, forgive him! | |
| Warwick. | So bad a death argues a monstrous life. |
| King Hen. | Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.— |
| Close up his eyes, and draw the curtain close, | |
| And let us all to meditation.[24] | |
M. Guillon relates the following remarkable case:—“The Chevalier de S—— had been engaged in seventeen ‘affairs of honour,’ in each of which his adversary fell. But the images of his murdered rivals began to haunt him night and day; and at length he fancied he heard nothing but the wailings and upbraidings of seventeen families—one demanding a father, another a son, another a brother, another a husband, &c. Harassed by these imaginary followers, he incarcerated himself in the monastery of La Trappe; but the French revolution threw open this asylum, and turned the chevalier once more into the world. He was now no longer able to bear the remorse of his own conscience, or, as he imagined, the sight of seventeen murdered men, and therefore put himself to death. It is evident that insanity was the consequence of the remorse, and the cause of the suicide.
“No disease of the imagination is so difficult to cure as that which is complicated with the idea of guilt: fancy and conscience then act interchangeably upon us, and so often shift their places, that the illusions of one are not distinguished from the dictates of the other. If fancy presents images not moral or religious, the mind drives them away when they give pain; but when melancholy notions take the form of duty, they lay hold on the faculties without opposition, because we are afraid to exclude or banish them.”[25]
How accurately has the poet depicted the tortures, the sleeplessness, of a guilty conscience:—
“Though thy slumber may be deep,
Yet thy spirit shall not sleep;
There are shades which will not vanish,