hand, and burst into tears. I was extremely
moved, and immediately said, "Child, how does your father do?" He began
to reply, "My mother--" but could not go on for weeping. I went down
with him into the coach, and gathered out of him, "That his mother was
then dying; and that, while the holy man was doing the last offices to
her, he had taken that time to come and call me to his father, who, he
said, would certainly break his heart, if I did not go and comfort
him." The child's discretion in coming to me of his own head, and the
tenderness he showed for his parents would have quite overpowered me,
had I not resolved to fortify myself for the seasonable performances of
those duties which I owed to my friend. As we were going, I could
not but reflect upon the character of that excellent woman, and the
greatness of his grief for the loss of one who has ever been the support
to him under all other afflictions. How, thought I, will he be able to
bear the hour of her death, that could not, when I was lately with him,
speak of a sickness, which was then past, without sorrow! We were now
got pretty far into Westminster, and arrived at my friend's house. At
the door of it I met Favonius, not without a secret satisfaction to find
he had been there. I had formerly conversed with him at his house;
and as he abounds with that sort of virtue and knowledge which makes
religion beautiful, and never leads the conversation into the violence
and rage of party disputes, I listened to him with great pleasure. Our
discourse chanced to be upon the subject of death, which he treated with
such a strength of reason, and greatness of soul, that, instead of being
terrible, it appeared to a mind rightly cultivated, altogether to be
contemned, or rather to be desired. As I met him at the door, I saw in
his face a certain glowing of grief and humanity, heightened with an air
of fortitude and resolution, which, as I afterwards found, had such
an irresistible force, as to suspend the pains of the dying, and the
lamentation of the nearest friends who attended her. I went up directly
to the room where she lay, and was met at the entrance by my friend,
who, notwithstanding his thoughts had been composed a little before,
at the sight of me turned away his face and wept. The little family
of children renewed the expressions of their sorrow according to their
several ages and degrees of understanding. The eldest daughter was in
tears, busied in attendance upon