260

DEATH S DOINGS.

who, when the hour of decision should arrive,would refuse to compromise, on any terms, for alonger beholding the light of the sun and of all thenatural objects which it illumines and presents:yet to what do these amount, in comparison withthe animated and social nature, with the world ofkindred, of relatives, and friends ?

" Fortunate for my commanding thraldom, man-kind are not conscious that the ' fear of death,' ab-stractedly considered, ' is most in apprehension;'or that, ' imagination's fool and error's wretch,man makes a death which nature never made, thenon the point of his own fancy falls, and feels athousand deaths in fearing one.' No, no—thePrince, nursed and wrapped in the splendour andluxuries of a gay and rich metropolis, has notbeen conversant with disquisitions of this sort; ifhe ever thinks upon, he also shudders at the con-templation of my blow." Death paused.—-Thiswas the time for taking up what he had proposedfor the second consideration of his subject, viz.:the mode to be adopted for securing the comple-tion of his plan. It required not a protracted ru-