guage; but he entertained some peculiar notions as to their aim and origin. He looked upon the Old Scriptures as the most faithful record in existence of an ancient people-a diurnal register of the events which happened in the theocracy of Egypt; at one period, of the annals of a court-at another, the fasts of a kingdom; at all times recorded by some historian of the state-a custom which once prevailed in Ireland, and to which we owe that mixture of political and domestic history entitled the Psalter of Cashel. This mode of daily registering the actions of the king, and the events of the kingdom, Mr. Salt found still practised in Abyssinia. I think he said it was at the court of the Ras Michael that he first witnessed this extraordinary custom. Every morning, in the presence of the prince and his followers, the court historian read aloud the most striking events of the preceding day; these were expressed in highly poetical language: the good actions of the prince were extolled to the seventh heaven, and, what was most extraordinary, any bad and unjustifiable deed of his was as faithfully recorded and as freely commented on. The prince took no offence at this; and the priests seldom expressed any disapprobation, except when any circumstance at all out of the ordinary course of things did not happen to be duly attributed to a suspension of the laws of nature, or to a sign of the favour or displeasure of the Almighty. And the historian, who united the profession of a poet, a prophet, and a physician, in his daily offices, was treated with royal honours, and had the protection of "the strong men" of the prince, each of whom had killed a lion. The circumstance strongly reminded Mr. Salt of "the strong men" of David; and indeed the whole exhibition made an impression on his mind which materially influenced his opinions. Poor Mr. Salt was now fast approaching the termination of his sufferings, and the intelligence of his near dissolution was soon spread abroad. The missionaries in every part of Egypt were immediately on the alert: there was a dying man to be instructed, if not consoled—a soul to be enlightened, if not saved-and, above all things, there was an important article for a " Missionary Herald ;" and there were many zealous gentlemen among the heathen in Lower Egypt, who were inwardly desirous of the materials. Mr. Montefiore had several applications on the subject, and some of those he thought it his duty to acquaint Mr. Salt with; but their offers were civilly declined. At length, however, we had a personal visit from the Rev. D. M'Pherson, a gentleman belonging to the Wesleyan Missionary Society, but who filled the office of chaplain to the English factory in Alexandria, and weekly performed the service for nearly two years, there being no clergyman of the Church of England resident there. This amiable and trulyreligious man, Mr. Salt respected highly; but he nevertheless refused to see him. He said he had no need of being preached to; he had no time to waste in controversy, he had but too little left to employ in prayer. "You might permit him to pray with you, my dear Sir," said Mr. Montefiore; "he is a good man, and his prayers can do you no hurt." "Let him come in," replied Mr. Salt, but no sermons, Doctor-no lectures now; he can tell me nothing I do not know he might tell me that which I should not like to hear, and have not sufficient strength to refute. But M Pherson is too good a man, were he twice a Methodist, to take advantage of a dying man." Mr. Montefiore left the chamber, and in a few minutes he returned with the clergyman, after having intimated to him that his spiritual assistance was to be confined to prayer. Mr. M'Pherson remained in prayer with the Consul for about a quarter of an hour; when he arose from his knees, his sense of duty caused him to forget the Doctor's intimation, and he addressed some observations to the Consul on the corruption of our nature, the degeneracy of man, and some such ordinary topics. Mr. Montefiore coughed, and coughed in vain. Poor Salt turned on one side and then on the other, like a ship in a heavy sea, tossing to and fro, and groaning at every surge which thunders on her sides. Mr. Montefiore at length interfered; the patient was exhausted, and it was time for the clergyman to retire. A better-intentioned man on earth did not exist than M Pherson. He returned to Alexandria; he had the misfortune to receive a brother missionary (of another connexion) and his family into his house, and he became the victim of a sordid jealousy : and his wrongs were an illustration of the folly of seeking out foreigners for employment which, an Englishman may presume to think, thousands of his own countrymen are as well qualified to fill, as any German Jew or Gentile who receives the wages of a British association. When Mr. Montefiore returned to the patient, he found what is emphatically called the deceitful tranquillity of death, sufficiently disturbed to render unnecessary any further preparation similar to the last. Whatever salutary influence might have been inwardly effected, there certainly was a good deal of agitation in the outer man. Such a consequence, no doubt, in a great majority of similar instances, is of little moment, compared with the importance of awakening the departing sinner to a more awful sense of his situation. Mr. Montefiore, however, whose duty he imagined was to minister to the sufferings of humanity, no less by medicinal agency than by seeking to compose the troubled mind, and by divesting the last struggle of every horror it was possible to remove, made use of every encouraging topic which was calculated to soothe the anguish, or dispel the fears, of the dying man. He reminded him of the various acts of beneficence which had gained him the blessings of the poor: he alluded to the reward assuredly reserved for a life of private virtue and of public utility, and presented to his closing eyes the cheerful picture of a benignant Being, whose all-exceeding attribute is mercy. "True, Doctor," replied Mr. Salt "We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Till custom make it their perch, and not their terror. A little more of that, and it might indeed be a fearful thing to die -To go we know not where; To lie in cold obstruction and to rot. But these are terrors which one may feel and yet not cherish. To that Power, to whom I owe my being, with humble confidence I commend my spirit.' These were the last observations of poor Salt, which bore the character of a continuous discourse. His powers failed; the chain of connected ideas became broken; and strange faucies were clothed in sober and intelligible language. That sort of delirium at length set in which is commonly observed in the decay of strongly-constituted minds; irrational ideas were rationally expressed; and the influence of death on the imagination appeared, like that of opium on the senses-an intoxicating madness-methodical in its manner, and, perhaps, more pleasurable in its nature than may be commonly supposed. On Thursday night all the symptoms of fast approaching death were present; the outstretched hands were constantly in motion in search of those invisible objects which are ever eluding the grasp of the dying man, The rigid lines of death became harsher every moment in his sunken features; the glistening moisture, which overspread the eyeballs, gave every instant a dimmer and duller expression to these orbs, and was at length condensed into the film which finally shuts out every earthly object. Ε He had been in the habit of calling Thursday his unlucky day: on that day he had lost his dearest friends; on that day he had encountered his heaviest misfortunes; and on that day he had told Mr. Montefiore, ere he quitted Alexandria, he was fully persuaded he should die. In the past week he had frequently said to us, "Remember Thursday; on that day you will return to Alexandria." The event, however, falsified the prediction; for on Thursday we did not return to Alexandria: he was still in life, but that was all. In the middle of the night he had contrived to elude the attention of his Greek servant Yani, who had been sitting up with him; and in the momentary strength of death, he tottered along the wall till he reached the outer chamber, and passing by the various attendants, sleeping here and there, he proceeded to the bench where Mr. Montefiore was lying, and fastening his fingers in his beard, he called out, in a hollow voice, "Doctor!-Doctor! -this is no time for sleeping." Mr. Montefiore's sensations may be easily conceived: on starting up, his eyes were rivetted on the tall and ghastly figure which stood over him, whose form and face conjoined were such as might be more readily imagined to belong to a spectre from the tomb than to a living human being. When Mr. Montefiore had somewhat recovered his self-possession, he said to him, "Why, in the name of God, Sir, have you arisen?" "To show you," replied the dying man, "the power that is left-the superhuman power that has enabled me to conquer death.—I am now saved-I am now well." Mr. Montefiore intreated him to return to his chamber; but he looked with horror to the door, and said he would never enter it again; it was a loathsome tomb, it had cost him too much labour to escape its reeking atmosphere. We found it impossible to persuade him to return, so we made up a bed for him beside that of Mr. Montefiore. Gradually he became more tranquil; but the impression never ceased to haunt him that his chamber was a charnel, and that he owed his deliverance from it to a mighty effort of his moral courage. He entertained the extraordinary notion that he had been for several days attending his own funeral, or rather in pursuit of it; for every time he came up with the procession, the horses immediately galloped on with the hearse, when he lost sight of his own corpse. He fancied he had at length overtaken it at the door of his apartment, and he had the key of it brought to him, and he kissed it repeatedly in gratitude for his escape. He lingered through the day, and about nightfall we had a repetition of the horrors of the preceding evening. We had been all completely exhausted with continued watching for nearly thirty days, and it was not to be wondered at that the attendant who was left in charge was sometimes found nodding at his duty. A very few hours before the close of the last scene, his Greek servant Yani, who was seated half-asleep by the bed-side, was suddenly startled by the noise of some one falling on the floor. On approaching the spot, he found his master extended at full length. He had stolen from his bed, as on the preceding night, but his strength soon failed him, and he sunk by the bed-side: a convulsion followed, which had distorted his features; and such was his appearance when the Greek beheld him, that, in the stupefaction of the moment, he stooped down and pressed his thumbs on his eyelids, believing him to be either dead or in the agony of dying. At that moment Mr. Montefiore approached, and thrust aside the stupified servant, with whom the poor invalid was feebly struggling; and no sooner was he released, than he stretched forth his cold hand, and, grasping that of Mr. Montefiore, he exclaimed, in a piteous tone"Oh, doctor, this is Frankenstein!" These were the last words he ever spoke. We carried him back |