read Burnet's
account of Rochester's illness and death with deep interest; and nothing
is so interesting as a death-bed. Those who delight in works of nervous
thought, and elevated sentiments, will read it too, and arise from the
perusal gratified. Those, however, who are true, contrite Christians
will go still farther; they will own that few works so intensely touch
the holiest and highest feelings; few so absorb the heart; few so
greatly show the vanity of life; the unspeakable value of purifying
faith. 'It is a book which the critic,' says Doctor Johnson, 'may read
for its elegance, the philosopher for its arguments, the saint for its
piety.'

Whilst deeply lamenting his own sins, Lord Rochester became anxious to
redeem his former associates from theirs.

'When Wilmot, Earl of Rochester,'[11] writes William Thomas, in a
manuscript preserved in the British Museum, 'lay on his death-bed, Mr.
Fanshawe came to visit him, with an intention to stay about a week with
him. Mr. Fanshawe, sitting by the bedside, perceived his lordship
praying to God, through Jesus Christ, and acquainted Dr. Radcliffe, who
attended my Lord Rochester in this illness and was then in the house,
with what he had heard, and told him that my lord was certainly
delirious, for to his knowledge, he said, he believed neither in God nor
in Jesus Christ. The doctor, who had often heard him pray in the same
manner, proposed to Mr. Fanshawe to go up to his lordship to be further
satisfied touching this affair. When they came to his room the doctor
told my lord what Mr. Fanshawe said, upon which his lordship addressed
himself to Mr. Fanshawe to this effect: "Sir, it is true, you and I have
been very bad and profane together, and then I was of the opinion you
mention. But now I am quite of another mind, and happy am I that I am
so. I am very sensible how miserable I was whilst of another opinion.
Sir, you may assure yourself that there is a Judge and a future state;"
and so entered into a very handsome discourse concerning the last
judgment, future state &c., and concluded with a serious and pathetic
exhortation to Mr. Fanshawe to enter into another course of life; adding
that he (Mr. F.) knew him to be his friend; that he never was more so
than at this time; and "sir," said he, "to use a Scripture expression, I
am not mad, but speak the words of truth and soberness." Upon this Mr.
Fanshawe trembled, and went immediately a-foot to Woodstock, and there
hired