The Last Words Of Distinguished Men And Women Part 21

The veneration for the monster Marat knew no bounds. Hymns were written in his honor. On divers stamps he was placed by the side of Christ. Men swore by the sacred heart of Marat. The new worship was complete, it had prost.i.tutes for G.o.ddesses, and a man of violence and blood for a martyr and a saint. All it yet lacked was to engage in persecution; and it failed not in this worthy business.--_De Pressense._

MARCUS (of Arethusa), being hung up in a basket smeared with honey, to be stung to death by bees, exclaimed,[30] "_How am I advanced, despising you that are upon the earth!_"

[30] To some of the most distinguished of our race death has come in the strangest possible way, and so grotesquely as to subtract greatly from the dignity of the sorrow it must certainly have occasioned. aeschylus, whose seventy tragedies, to say nothing of his many satiric dramas, have given their author an immortal name, was killed by the fall of a tortoise on his bald head from the talons of an eagle high in the air above him.

There was a singular propriety in the death of Anacreon by choking at a grape stone or a dried grape. The poet whose sweetest and most enticing lines celebrate wine and love came to his death at the ripe age of eighty-five from the fruit of the vine. Agathocles, the tyrant of Syracuse, was given by the treacherous Maenon a poisoned toothpick which soon rendered his mouth incurably gangrened, and deprived him of the power of speech. While in this miserable and helpless condition he was stretched upon the funeral pile and burned alive.

Fabius, the Roman praetor, died from the same cause that occasioned the death of Anacreon. A single goat hair in the milk he was drinking, lodged in his trachea and choked him. Chalchas, the soothsayer, outlived the time predicted for his death, which struck him as so comical that he burst into a fit of most immoderate laughter from which he died. Thus also died the famous Marquette, who was convulsed with a fatal merriment on seeing a monkey trying to pull on a pair of boots. Philomenes was seized with an equally disastrous merriment when he came suddenly upon an a.s.s that was devouring with greediness the choice figs that had been prepared for his own desert.

Laughter killed the great Zeuxis, of whom Pliny relates the story of a trial of skill with the painter Parrhasius. The former painted a bunch of grapes that were so natural a bird endeavored to eat the fruit. Charles VIII., while gallantly conducting his queen into the tennis court, struck his head against the lintel and died soon after from the accident.

Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales, was struck by a cricket ball, which caused his death. A pig occasioned the death of Louis VI., the creature ran under the monarch's horse causing it to stumble. But of all strange deaths that of Itadach is the strangest. He expired from thirst while toiling in the harvest field, because, in obedience to the rule of St. Patrick, he would not drink "a drop of anything."

MARGARET (of Scotland, wife of Louis XI. of France), 1420-1445. "_Fi de la vie! qu'on ne m'en parle plus._"

Margaret was devoted to literature, and, while she lived, patronized men of learning and genius. Her admiration for the poet Alain Chartier is said to have induced her to kiss his lips as he sat asleep one day in a chair. Her attendants being astonished at this act of condescension, the princess replied that "she did not kiss the man, but the lips which had given utterance to so many exquisite thoughts." She died at the age of twenty-five, before her husband had ascended the throne.

_Mrs. Hale's "Sketches of Distinguished Women."_

MARGARET (of Valois, Queen of Navarre and sister of Francis I., of France), 1492-1549. "_Farewell, and remember me._" Some say, upon what authority I do not know, that the queen's last words were: "I never departed from the true church."

She inclined to the Protestant faith, but Roman Catholic writers a.s.sert that before her death she acknowledged her religious errors, and De Remond even goes so far as to imply that she denied on her death-bed having ever swerved from the standard of Roman authority.--_Memoir of Margaret, attached to the English translation of her Heptameron._

She was a brilliant writer in both prose and verse, and was called the "Tenth Muse." Several authors speak of her as "Margaret the Pearl, surpa.s.sing all the pearls of the Orient." She composed a religious work called "Miroir de l'ame Pecheresse," which was condemned by the Sorbonne, on the ground that it inclined to Protestant doctrines. She also wrote the "Heptameron, or Novels of the Queen of Navarre."

MARIE ANTOINETTE (Marie Antoinette Josephine Jeanne de Lorraine, daughter of Francis I., Emperor of Germany, and Maria Theresa, and wife of Louis XVI., of France; she was guillotined October 16, 1793), 1755-1793. "_Farewell, my children, forever. I go to your father._"

The king perished on the scaffold January 21, 1793. The queen had four children, Marie Therese Charlotte, who married the oldest son of Charles X.; the dauphin, Louis, born in 1781 and died in 1789; Charles Louis, who died a victim to the brutality of the cobbler Simon; and a daughter who died in infancy.

MARTINEAU (Harriet, English author, and translator of "The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte"), 1802-1876. "_I have had a n.o.ble share of life, and I do not ask for any other life. I see no reason why the existence of Harriet Martineau should be perpetuated._"

During the last one-and-twenty years of her life, death was the idea most familiar and most welcome. It was spoken of and provided for with an easy freedom that I never saw approached in any other home, yet she never expressed a wish respecting a place of burial. But a few days before her death, when asked if she would be laid in the burial-place of her family, she a.s.sented; and she lies with her kindred, in the old cemetery at Birmingham.[31]

_Maria Weston Chapman._

[31] Her Will, by which her personalty, sworn under 10,000, is suitably divided among her brothers and sisters, an old servant, and a few friends, contains one peculiar provision which indicates the desire of the testatrix, even when dead, to benefit the living. "It is my desire," she says, "from an interest in the progress of scientific investigation, that my Skull should be given to Henry George Atkinson, of Upper Gloucester Place, London, and also my Brain, if my death should take place within such distance of his then present abode, as to enable him to have it for the purposes of scientific observation." By the second codicil, dated October 5th, 1872, this direction is revoked; "but," the codicil proceeds, "I wish to leave it on record that this alteration in my testamentary directions is not caused by any change of opinion as to the importance of scientific observation on such subjects, but is made in consequence merely of a change of circ.u.mstances in my individual case." The "circ.u.mstances" alluded to were doubtless these. When the removal of Miss Martineau to London took place, the "Burke and Hare"

murders, and "body-s.n.a.t.c.hing" generally, were the special horrors of the day. The only authorized supply of "subjects" for dissection was from the gallows; and philanthropic persons sought by selling the reversion of their bodies (a transaction which, legally, does not hold good), or like Jeremy Bentham, leaving them to some inst.i.tution, or medical expert, by a special bequest (also nugatory), to dissolve the a.s.sociation of disgrace with the necessary procedure of dissection. The difficulty was, in great measure, relieved by the pa.s.sing of Mr. Warburton's Bill; and hence the necessity for such an arrangement as that made by Miss Martineau ceased to exist. The singular provision, had however, become known; and shortly after the execution of the doc.u.ment, the testatrix received a letter from the celebrated aurist, Mr. Toynbee, asking her point-blank to bequeath him a "legacy of her ears." She had suffered from deafness all her life; a large amount of mischief and misery was caused by the ignorance of surgeons with regard to the auditory apparatus; and this ignorance could only be removed by such means as he proposed. The lady to whom this strange request was made, says with grim humour, that she felt "rather amused when she caught herself in a feeling of shame, as it were, at having only one pair of ears,--at having no duplicate for Mr. Toynbee, after having disposed otherwise of her skull." She, however, told him how the matter actually stood; and a meeting took place between the doctor and the legatee, "to ascertain whether one head could, in any way, be made to answer both their objects."

An autopsy of her body was eventually made by Dr. T. M. Greenhow, of Leeds; a full detail of the appearances at which will be found in the _British Medical Journal_, for April 14th, 1877, p.

449.--_William Bates in "The Maclise Portrait Gallery._"

MARY (Queen of Scots), 1542-1587. "_O Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit._"

The first blow of the executioner inflicted a ghastly wound on the lower part of the skull. Not a scream nor groan, not a sigh escaped her, but the convulsion of her features showed the horrible suffering caused by the wound. The eye-witness of the execution, whose account is published, thus relates this incident: "Thereupon the headsman brought down his axe, but missing the proper place, gave her a horrible blow upon the upper extremity of the neck; but, with unexampled fort.i.tude, she remained perfectly still, and did not even heave a sigh. At the second stroke the neck was severed and the head held up to the gaze of bystanders with 'G.o.d save Queen Elizabeth!'"--_Meline's "Mary Queen of Scots."_

When the psalm was finished she felt for the block, and laying down her head muttered: "In ma.n.u.s, Domine, tuas commendo animam meam." The hard wood seemed to hurt her, for she placed her hands under her neck. The executioners gently removed them lest they should deaden the blow, and then one of them, holding her slightly, the other raised the axe and struck. The scene had been too trying even for the practised headsman of the Tower. His arm wandered. The blow fell on the knot of the handkerchief and scarcely broke the skin. She neither spoke nor moved.

He struck again, this time effectively. The head hung by a shred of skin, which he divided without withdrawing the axe, and at once a metamorphosis was witnessed strange as was ever wrought by wand of fabled enchanter. The coif fell off and the false plaits; the labored illusion vanished; the lady who had knelt before the block was in the maturity of grace and loveliness. The executioner, when he raised the head as usual to show it to the crowd, exposed the withered features of a grizzled, wrinkled old woman.

_Froude's "History of England."_

MARY (Countess of Warwick),--1678. "_Well, ladies, if I were one hour in heaven, I would not be again with you, as much as I love you._"

She is the author of the famous question: "Why are we so fond of that life which begins with a cry, and ends with a groan?"

MARY I. (Queen of England, commonly called "b.l.o.o.d.y Queen Mary" on account of her violent and cruel persecution of the Protestants), 1517-1558. "_After I am dead, you will find Calais written upon my heart._"

The loss of Calais just before her death affected her deeply.

Of the first Mary, long and too deservedly known by the t.i.tle of "b.l.o.o.d.y Mary," we confess we can never think without commiseration. Unamiable she certainly was, and deplorably bigoted. She sent two hundred and eighty-four people to the stake during a short reign of five years and four months; which, upon an average, is upwards of four a week! She was withal plain, petty of stature, ill-colored, and fierce-eyed, with a voice almost as deep as a man's; had a bad blood; and ended with having n.o.body to love her, not even the bigots in whose cause she lost the love of her people.

_Leigh Hunt: "Men, Women and Books."_

MARY II. (Queen of England and wife of William III.), 1662-1694. "_My Lord, why do you not go on? I am not afraid to die._" Said to Archbishop Tillotson who, reading to her, when she was upon her death-bed, the commendatory prayer in the office for the sick, was so overcome by grief that he was compelled to pause.

MASANIELLO (Tommaso Aniello, the fisherman of Amalfi, who headed the revolt which occurred in Naples in 1647 against the Spanish viceroy, the Duke of Arcos. His victory lasted nine days, during which time he had one hundred and fifty thousand men under arms and at his command. He was murdered by his own soldiers), 1623-1646. "_Ungrateful traitors!_" said to the a.s.sa.s.sins.

MATHER (Cotton), 1633-1728. "_I am going where all tears will be wiped from my eyes_," to his wife, who wiped his eyes with her handkerchief.

Just before this he exclaimed: "Is this dying? Is this all? Is this all that I feared when I prayed against a hard death? Oh! I can bear this! I can bear it! I can bear it!"

He was a masterful man, abundant in labors, the organizer of over twenty charitable societies, a leader of all movements in church and state, an omnivorous reader, and the author of 382 separate publications, besides his enormous "Biblia Americana," which remains to this day in ma.n.u.script. He surmounted the prejudices of his age in defending inoculation, but not with regard to witchcraft and some other matters.

His character was marred by certain restless infirmities; "it was his unconcealed grief that he was never elected to preside over Harvard."

His greatest work, "Magnalia Christi Americana," 1702, was reprinted in two volumes, with memoir, and translations of the numerous Hebrew, Greek, and Latin quotations, Hartford, 1855.

_Biographical Dictionary._

MATHER (Increase, distinguished New England divine), 1639-1723. "_Be fruitful._"

MATHER (Richard, celebrated Congregational minister in Dorchester, Ma.s.s.

He was a voluminous author), 1596-1669. "_Far from well, yet far better than mine iniquities deserve_," in response to a question about his health.

MATHEWS (Charles, English Comedian), 1776-1836. "_I am ready._"

MAURICE (John Frederick Denison, English divine and leader of the Broad Church party), 1805-1872. "_The knowledge of the love of G.o.d--the blessing of G.o.d Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost be amongst you--amongst us--and remain with us forever._"

During the early days of his last sickness he suffered greatly in mind, but as the end approached the sky cleared as after a shower, and his spirit pa.s.sed away under the bright rainbow of hope.

MAZARIN (Jules, cardinal and chief minister of France during the minority of Louis XIV.), 1602-1661. "_O, my poor soul, what is to become of thee? Whither wilt thou go?_"