368 Obituary JYotice of Dr. Gaspar Spurzheim. 



so great, that large drops rolled from his face, while his delivery was, 

 at the same time, "easy, calm, systematic and even sportive." "At 

 one of his last lectures in Boston, (the beautiful one on charity and 

 mutual forbearance) he was seized with shivering, which proved the 

 commencement of a fever ; but, against the wishes of his friends, 

 he continued to lecture, thinking that it would assist him to throw off 

 his indisposition. Owing to the constantly increasing number of his 

 hearers, he exchanged the lecture room in the Athenaeum for the 

 large hall in the Temple. He had finished his course except one 

 lecture, and before he left the hall he asked " In what place shall we 

 meet next time?" 



Alas ! it was not to be in this world ! 



He returned to his lodgings and never left them again. During 

 his sickness, every professional and friendly assiduity was shown 

 him, for which, while his faculties were his own, he was very grate- 

 ful ; but he relied more on nature than on medicine, and frequently 

 refused to take the remedies prescribed. 



Through his sickness, however, he was patient and submissive, and 

 distinctly announced his own views of his case in the emphatical 

 words " I must die;" when his friend replied — I hope not — he added 

 " Oh yes, I must die ; I wish to live as long as I can, for the good 

 of the science ; but I am not afraid of death." 



His feelings were affected even to weeping by letters from his 

 friends in Paris,* received a day or two before his death. An in- 

 creasing delirium ended in stupor, from which he was occasionally 

 roused, especially when addressed by a friend in his native tongue. 



With his hands folded upon his breast, and an uplifted countenance, 

 he died without a groan, on the night of the 11th of November ; and 

 although he breathed his last in a land of strangers, he was surround- 

 ed by affectionate friends, and by able physicians, emulous of doing 

 something to rescue him from death, or to smooth his downward 

 passage to the grave. He was in the 56th year of his age. 



Artists were eager to copy the outlines of his " noble and benign 

 countenance ;" the most eminent men met to arrange the solemnities 

 of his funeral, which was honored by a public religious service in the 

 ancient and venerable South Church ; his body, after being examin- 

 ed, was embalmed and placed in the receiving tomb of Mount Au- 



*The public prints mention his having then received a letter from an affectionate 

 sister. 



