Part 6 (1/2)

Opposition was feared from the Romans. It was a.s.serted that it was not Michael Angelo's last wish to be buried in his native city. His friends went secretly to work. The coffin was conveyed as merchandise out of the gates.

On the eleventh of March it arrived at Florence. After thirty years of voluntary exile, Michael Angelo returned, when dead, to his native city.

Only a few knew that it was he who entered the gate in that covered coffin.

In the sacristy the coffin was opened for the first time. The people had forced their way into the church. There he lay; and, in spite of three weeks having elapsed since his death, he seemed unchanged, and bore no symptom of decay; the features undisfigured, as if he had just died.

_Grimm: ”Life of Michael Angelo.”_

About the year 1720 the vault in Santa Croce was opened, and the remains of Michael Angelo were found not to have lost their original form. He was habited in the costume of the ancient citizens of Florence, in a gown of green velvet, and slippers of the same.--_Bottari._

BURKE or BOURKE (Edmund, orator, and statesman), 1730-1797. ”_G.o.d bless you._”

BURN (Andrew, major-general in the Royal Marines), 1742-1814. ”_n.o.body, n.o.body but Jesus Christ. Christ crucified is the stay of my poor soul_,” to one who asked him if he wished to see any one.

BURNS (Robert, the great peasant poet of Scotland), 1759-1796. ”_Oh, don't let the awkward squad fire over me!_” He alluded to a body of Dumfries militia, of which he was a member, and of which he entertained a very poor opinion.[9]

[9] In the Appendix of Allan Cunningham's ”Life of Burns” we read of an examination of the poet's Tomb, made immediately after that life was published:

”When Burns's Mausoleum was opened in March, 1834, to receive the remains of his widow, some residents in Dumfries obtained the consent of her nearest relative to take a cast from the cranium of the poet. This was done during the night between the 31st of March and 1st of April. Mr. Archibald Blacklock, surgeon, drew up the following description:

”The cranial bones were perfect in every respect, if we except a little erosion of their external table, and firmly held together by their sutures, &c., &c. Having completed our intention [_i. e._, of taking a plaster cast of the skull, washed from every particle of sand, &c.], the skull securely closed in a leaden case, was again committed to the earth, precisely where we found it.”

BURR (Aaron, third Vice-President of the United States. In 1804 he fought his famous duel with Hamilton), 1756-1836. ”_Madame._”

BURTON (Sir Richard F.), 1821-1890. ”_Oh Puss, chloroform--ether--or I am a dead man_,” said to his wife who feared to administer an anaesthetic without the direction of a physician. Dr. Barker in a letter to Lady Stisled says that a moment later ”suddenly the breathing became labored, there were a few moments of awful struggle for air, then, conscious to the last, he exclaimed, 'I am a dead man,' fell back on his pillow and expired.”

BUTLER (Benjamin Franklin, attorney-general of the United States, from 1831 to 1834), 1795-1858. ”_I have peace, perfect peace. 'Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee.'_”

BUTLER (Joseph, English Bishop, and author of the celebrated ”a.n.a.logy of Religion”), 1692-1752. ”_I have often read and thought of that scripture, but never till this moment did I feel its full power, and now I die happy._” These words were spoken to his chaplain who read him John vi., and called attention to the 37th verse: ”All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”

BYRON (George Gordon Noel, Lord, one of the greatest of English poets), 1788-1824. ”_I must sleep now._”

It has been a.s.serted, upon what authority the compiler does not know, that the last words of Byron were, ”Shall I sue for mercy?” After a long pause he added, it is said, ”Come, come, no weakness: let me be a man to the last.”

CAESAR (Caius Julius), B. C. 100-44. ”_Et tu Brute!_” to Marcus Brutus, on discovering him among the a.s.sa.s.sins.

Authorities differ: some have it, ”What! art thou, too, one of them!

Thou, my son!” and others omit the words ”my son.” If, however, the last two words are to be retained, they express only the difference of age between Caesar and Brutus. There is no good reason for regarding them as an avowal that Brutus was the fruit of the connection between Julius and Servilia.

He died in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and was ranked amongst the G.o.ds, not only by a formal decree, but in the belief of the vulgar. For during the first games which Augustus, his heir, consecrated to his memory, a comet blazed for seven days together, rising always about eleven o'clock; and it was supposed to be the soul of Caesar, now received into heaven; for which reason, likewise, he is represented in his statue with a star on his brow. The senate-house in which he was slain was ordered to be shut up, and a decree was made that the ides of March should be called parricidal, and that the senate should never more a.s.semble on that day.

_J. Eugene Reed: ”The Twelve Caesars.”_