Instead of strutting about as formerly, with his three-cornered hat on one side; flourishing his cudgel, and bringing it down every moment with a hearty thump upon the ground; looking every one sturdily in the face, and trolling out a stave of a catch or a drinking song; he now goes about whistling thoughtfully to himself, with his head drooping down, his cudgel tucked under his arm, and his hands thrust to the bottom of his breeches pockets, which are evidently empty.
Such is the plight of honest John Bull at present; yet for all this, the old fellow's spirit is as tall and as gallant as ever. If you drop the least expression of sympathy or concern, he takes fire in an instant; swears that he is the richest and stoutest fellow in the country; talks of laying out large sums to adorn his house or buy another estate; and with a valiant swagger and grasping of his cudgel, longs exceedingly to have another bout at quarter-staff.
Though there may be something rather whimsical in all this, yet I confess I cannot look upon John's situation without strong feelings of interest. With all his odd humours and obstinate prejudices, he is a sterling-hearted old blade. He may not be so wonderfully fine a fellow as he thinks himself, but he is at least twice as good as his neighbours represent him. His virtues are all his own; all plain, home bred and unaffected. His very faults smack of the raciness of his good qualities. His extravagance savours of his generosity; his quarrelsomeness, of his courage; his credulity, of his open faith; his vanity, of his pride; and his bluntness, of his sincerity. They are all the redundancies of a rich and liberal character. He is like his old oak, rough without, but sound and solid within, whose bark abounds with excrescences in proportion to the growth and grandeur of the timber; and whose branches make a fearful groaning and murmuring in the least storm, from their very magnitude and luxuriance. There is something, too, in the appearance of his old family mansion that is extremely poetical and picturesque; and, as long as it can be rendered comfortably habitable, I should almost tremble to see it meddled with, during the present conflict of tastes and opinions. Some of his advisers are no doubt good architects, that might be of service; but many, I fear, are mere levellers, who, when they had once got to work with their mattocks on this venerable edifice, would never stop until they had brought it to the ground, and perhaps buried themselves among the ruins. All that I wish is that John's present troubles may teach him more prudence in the future. That he may cease to distress his mind about other people's affairs; that he may give up the fruitless attempt to promote the good of his neighbours, and the peace and happiness of the world, by dint of the cudgel; that he may remain quietly at home; gradually get his house into repair; cultivate his rich estate according to his fancy; husband his income—if he thinks proper; bring his unruly children into order—if he can; renew the jovial scenes of ancient prosperity; and long enjoy, on his paternal lands, a green, an honourable and a merry old age.
[THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON (1821).]
Source.—The Gentleman's Magazine, 1821. Vol. 91, p. 86.
May 5. At St. Helena, of a lingering illness, which had confined him to his bed for upwards of forty days, Napoleon Buonaparte. He desired that after his death his body should be opened, as he suspected he was dying of the same disease which had killed his father—a cancer in the stomach.
He lay in state three days, at the particular wish of the French people, who behaved to all visitors with much affability, amounting to condescension. The body was opened; the stomach was the entire seat of the disease—a cancer, or a schirrous state of that organ. The disease must have caused great pain, and appeared to have been of considerable standing. It was remarked before his death, that for more than nine days he had refused all nourishment, which was supposed to proceed from resignation or obstinacy; but the diseased state of the stomach fully accounts for it.
The body was laid out on a bed in a room of the middling size, hung with black, and well lighted up. He was dressed in full Field-Marshal's uniform; that said to have been worn by him at the battle of Marengo. His person seemed small, and rather diminutive (exact height five feet seven inches); but the fineness of the countenance much exceeded expectation. The face appeared to be large, compared with the body; the features pleasing and extremely regular, still retaining a half-formed smile; and must have been truly imposing, when enlivened by a penetrating pair of eyes. His skin was perfectly sallow, which seemed to be its natural colour.
The garden was laid out in the most fanciful manner; an astonishing variety being contained in a very small space.