The appalling performance was done, the actor disrobed, transformed, and vanished, when the servants, concerned at his delay to appear, and alarmed at obtaining no answer to their knocking, entered the chamber. The body, dressed excepting as to the outer coat, lay facing upwards on the bed, with the hands grasping a pair of light dumb-bells, and a livid streak across the right temple. A near friend and a physician were immediately called. But it was vain. The fatal acting was finished, and the player gone beyond recall.
The curtain falls. The drama of a life
Is ended. One who trod the mimic stage
As if the crown, the sceptre, and the robe
Were his by birthright—worn from youth to age—
“Ay, every inch a king,” with voiceless lips,
Lies in the shadow of Death’s cold eclipse.
Valete et plaudite! Well might he
Have used the Roman’s language of farewell
Who was “the noblest Roman of them all;”