TAAROARll’s LAST ILLNESS. 239 
interest, as I stood at bis feet, and watched his 
short and laborious respiration; his restless and 
^verish head had been long pillowed on the lap 
of his affectionate wife, whose face, with that of 
every other friend, was suffused with tears. His 
eye rolling its keen fitful glance on every object, 
but resting on none, spoke a state of feeling remote 
indeed from tranquillity and ease. I could not 
help supposing that his agitated soul was, through 
this her natural window, looking wishfully on all 
she then was leaving; and as I saw his eye rest 
on his wife, his father, his friends around, and 
then glancing to the green boughs that waved 
gently in the passing breeze, the bright and clear 
blue sky that appeared at intervals through the 
foliage, and the distant hills whose summits were 
burnished with the splendour of the retiring sun — 
I almost imagined the intensity and rapidity of his 
glance indicated an impression that he would never 
gaze on them again. Such was the conviction of 
my own mind ; and I reluctantly retired, more 
deeply than ever impressed with the necessity of 
early and habitual preparation for death. 
O ! how different would the scene have been, 
had this interesting youth, as earth with all its 
associations receded, experienced the consola¬ 
tions and the hopes of the gospel. I presume 
not to say that in his last hours, in those 
emotions of the soul which nature was too much 
exhausted to allow him to declare, and which 
were known only to God and to himself, he 
was not cheered by these anticipations. I would 
try to hope it was so : for indications of such 
feelings, his sorrowing and surviving friends 
anxiously waited. 
How striking the contrast between his last day 
