SIR WILLIAM'S DEATH.

37

whose gentle voice had so often encouraged and cheered his labours, or soothed the long hours of pain and sickness, was gone; and his solitude was complete. Still he did not positively complain of ill-health. The mind was more tried than the body. And it was not until the 20th of April, 1794, three months after the departure of Lady Jones, that he was taken seriously ill. On the evening of that day he had been walking to an unusually late hour, and had stood engaged long in conversation in an unwholesome atmosphere. He then called upon his old tried friend, and future biographer, Sir J. More, and after complaining of agueish feelings, jocularly remarked in the words of an old proverb, that "an ague in the spring is medicine for a king,"-Alas! a more fatal enemy than ague had attacked him. Inflammation of the liver, a common complaint in Bengal, had come on. Medical advice was called in, but too late: ere another week had flown, the distinguished linguist and lawyer, the upright judge, and most amiable man had breathed his last. He died on the 27th April, 1794, in the forty-seventh year of his age, away from a much loved wife and far from his native land.

"God called him to a world unknown."

But he did not die unmourned. The honours due, not only to his public station, but also to his many private virtues and attaching qualities, were not paid grudgingly to his memory. The genius

of Flaxman was employed, to make a fitting monument to him, by the East India Company. We will not withdraw the veil from the sacred grief of her who had been bound to him by the closest ties of affection. True to his memory and as chary of his reputation after his death, as she had been during his life, she remembered his words, "that the best monument that can be erected to a man of literary talent, is a good edition of his works ;" and she had the whole of them published in six quarto volumes. We will conclude this imperfect sketch of a good and great example of the use of doing one's best in every relation of life, with an epitaph, written by himself and found among his papers.

Here was deposited

The mortal part of a man,

Who feared God, but not death.
And maintained independence

But sought not riches;
Who thought

None below him, but the base and unjust;
None above him, but the wise and virtuous.
Who loved

His parents, kindred, friend, country,
With an ardour;

Which was the chief source of all his pleasures, and all
his pain. And who, having devoted his life
to their service and to the improvement of his mind,
Resigned it calmly;

Giving glory to his Creator, wishing peace on earth,
And with good will to all creatures.

On the (27th) day of (April),
In the year of our blessed Redeemer,
(1794.)

Bernard Palissy.

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THE STORY OF BERNARD PALISSY,
THE POTTER.

ON a bright spring morning, in the year 1528, when nature had donned her freshest green, and the air was sweet with the scent of many flowers, a young man humbly clad, and bearing a scanty wallet on his shoulder, wended his way through the chesnut forests which skirted the little hamlet of Chapelle Biron, in Perigord.

His step was firm and elastic, and his well-knit limbs and ruddy cheek, betokened a healthy, vigorous nature. His face was remarkable, more from its straightforward, earnest gaze, than from any particular beauty of feature; while the smile which played around his mouth, spoke of a light heart and hopeful spirit. He seemed as if eagerly, yet fearlessly, pressing forward for the attainment of some great object, determined to overcome all difficulties, and surmount all the rough barriers that might encounter the path, which would lead him to the goal.

It was thus, that Bernard Palissy quitted his native village, to seek his fortunes in the world.