Boileau (Boileau-Despréaux, Nicolas, eminent French poet and satirist), 1636-1711. "It is a great consolation for a dying poet to have never written a word against morality."

Boleyn or Bullen (Anne, wife of Henry VIII), 1507-1536. Just before she knelt to lay her head on the block she clasped her neck with her hands, and said: "It is small, very small indeed."

Bolingbroke (Henry St. John, Viscount, English author, orator, and politician), 1678-1751. At last, though the precise words are not preserved, he gave directions that no clergyman should visit him, and avowed his adherence to the deistical principles to which he had held through his life.

His last words to Lord Chesterfield were: "God, who placed me here, will do what he pleases with me hereafter, and he knows best what to do. May he bless you."[6]

The dreadful malady under which Bolingbroke lingered, and at length sank—a cancer in the face—he bore with exemplary fortitude, a fortitude drawn from the natural resources of his mind, and unhappily not aided by the consolation of any religion; for, having early cast off the belief in revelation, he had substituted, in its stead, a dark and gloomy naturalism, which even rejected those glimmerings of hope as to futurity not untasted by the wiser of the heathens.—Lord Brougham.

Booth (John Wilkes, American actor, the assassin of President Lincoln),—1865. "Useless! useless!" Said to the officer who demanded that he should surrender.

There has been some strange discussion of a mysterious paper said to have been delivered to Mr. John F. Coyle, editor of "The National Intelligencer" and purporting to be a statement to the public from John Wilkes Booth. An eye-witness relates that on the night of the assassination of President Lincoln, a private dinner-party was in progress in a back room at Wormley's restaurant, in Washington, at which were present General Baird, Robert Johnson, the Hon. Samuel J. Randall, John Morrissey, John F. Coyle, editor of "The National Intelligencer," and one other gentleman. During the progress of the dinner a waiter, who had been out on the street, returned and stated that the President had been shot at Ford's Theatre. The news created great consternation in the party, who at first thought the waiter was drunk or crazy. Later, when they were assured that it was a fact, and that John Wilkes Booth was accused of the crime, John F. Coyle, with blanched features and trembling lips, said: "My God, gentlemen! This very day I met John Wilkes Booth on the market-space. He was on a bay mare, and rode up to me and handed me a sealed envelope, saying, as he did so, 'If you hear of me within twenty-four hours, publish this; if you do not hear of me within that time, destroy this,' and he rode away. Here is the package," continued Mr. Coyle, producing a letter envelope from his pocket; "what shall I do with it?" "Destroy it at once," said Mr. Randall. "They will hang anybody who knows anything about the assassination, no matter how innocently he may have come by the knowledge; don't open it—burn it up just as it is!" "Yes," said Mr. Morrissey, "burn it up, for God's sake, at once." The doors were carefully locked. A fire was made in the grate, and the mysterious envelope and its contents were carefully burned. Even the ashes were collected and placed in a dish; water was poured upon them, and the two were mixed into a paste, which was afterward put into the fire and burned again.

Borgia (Cesare), killed at the siege of the Castle of Biano in 1507. "I die unprepared."

"Cesare Borgia was one of the most crafty, cruel, and corrupt men of that corrupt age. No crime was too foul for him to perpetrate or be suspected of. He was charged with the murder of his elder brother, Giovanni, duke of Gandia, and of Alfonso, the husband of Lucrezia; with plotting with his father the murder of Cardinal Corneto; and with incest with his sister. In his wars he had garrisons massacred, and carried off bands of women to gratify his lust."—Cate.

Bossuet (Jacques Bénigne, French divine and pulpit orator), 1627-1704. "I suffer the violence of pain and death, but I know whom I have believed."