etorian rank, died while asking a boy what o'clock
it was; Aulus Manlius Torquatus, a gentleman of consular rank, died in
the act of taking a cheese-cake at dinner; Lucius Tuscius Valla, the
physician, deceased while taking a draught of mulsum; Appius Saufeius,
while swallowing an egg: and Cornelius Gallus, the praetor, and Titus
Haterius, a knight, each died while kissing the hand of his wife. And I
might add many more names with which, no doubt, you are equally
familiar.'

The gentlemen of the household opened their eyes; the officers of the
Royal Irish Artillery, who understood their man, winked pleasantly
behind their cocked hats at one another; and his excellency coughed,
with his perfumed pocket-handkerchief to his nose, a good deal; and
Master Dicky Sturk, a grave boy, who had a side view of his excellency,
told his nurse that the lord lieutenant laughed in church! and was
rebuked for that scandalum magnatum with proper horror.

Then the good doctor told them that the blood of the murdered man cried
to heaven. That they might comfort themselves with the assurance that
the man of blood would come to judgment. He reminded them of St.
Augustan's awful words, 'God hath woollen feet, but iron hands;' and he
told them an edifying story of Mempricius, the son of Madan, the fourth
king of England, then called Britaine, after Brute, who murdered his
brother Manlius, and mark ye this, after twenty years he was devoured by
wild beasts; and another of one Bessus--'tis related by Plutarch--who
having killed his father, was brought to punishment by means of
swallows, which birds, his guilty conscience persuaded him, in their
chattering language did say to one another, that Bessus had killed his
father, whereupon he bewrayed his horrible crime, and was worthily put
to death. 'The great Martin Luther,' he continued, 'reports such another
story of a certain Almaigne, who, when thieves were in the act of
murdering him, espying a flight of crows, cried aloud, "Oh crows, I take
you for witnesses and revengers of my death." And so it fell out, some
days afterwards, as these same thieves were drinking in an inn, a flight
of crows came and lighted on the top of the house; whereupon the
thieves, jesting, said to one another, "See, yonder are those who are to
avenge the death of him we despatched t'other day," which the tapster
overhearing, told forthwith to the magistrate, who arrested them
presently, and thereupon they confessed, and