e, that they might give him a distinguished
mark of their esteem. "The king," says D'Alembert, "to satisfy at once
the delicacy of their friendship, and that of their cardinalship, and to
preserve at the same time that academical equality, of which this
enlightened monarch (Louis XIV.) well knew the advantage, sent to the
Academy forty arm-chairs for the forty academicians, the same chairs
which we now occupy; and the motive to which we owe them is sufficient
to render the memory of Louis XIV. precious to the republic of letters,
to whom it owes so many more important obligations!"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 115: A very clever satire has been concocted in an imaginary
history of "a forty-first chair" of the Academy which has been occupied
by the great men of literature who have not been recognised members of
the official body, and whose "existence there has been unaccountably
forgotten" in the annals of its members.]

POETICAL AND GRAMMATICAL DEATHS.

It will appear by the following anecdotes, that some men may be said to
have died _poetically_ and even _grammatically_.

There must be some attraction existing in poetry which is not merely
fictitious, for often have its genuine votaries felt all its powers on
the most trying occasions. They have displayed the energy of their mind
by composing or repeating verses, even with death on their lips.

The Emperor Adrian, dying, made that celebrated address to his soul,
which is so happily translated by Pope. Lucan, when he had his veins
opened by order of Nero, expired reciting a passage from his Pharsalia,
in which he had described the wound of a dying soldier. Petronius did
the same thing on the same occasion.

Patris, a poet of Caen, perceiving himself expiring, composed some
verses which are justly admired. In this little poem he relates a dream,
in which he appeared to be placed next to a beggar, when, having
addressed him in the haughty strain he would probably have employed on
this side of the grave, he receives the following reprimand:--

Ici tous sont egaux; je ne te dois plus rien;
Je suis sur mon fumier comme toi sur le tien.

Here all are equal! now thy lot is mine!
I on my dunghill, as thou art on thine.

Des Barreaux, it is said, wrote on his death-bed that well-known sonnet
which is translated in the "Spectator."

Margaret of Austria, when she was nearly perishing in a storm at sea,
composed her epitaph in verse. Had she perishe