--

"It is as if the dead could feel
The icy worm about them steal:"--BYRON.]

On the 22nd July, the king asked Dr. Mercado if his sickness was likely
to have a fatal termination. The physician, not having the courage at
once to give the only possible reply, found means to evade the question.
On the 1st August his Majesty's confessor, father Diego de Yepes, after
consultation with Mercado, announced to Philip that the only issue to his
malady was death. Already he had been lying for ten days on his back, a
mass of sores and corruption, scarcely able to move, and requiring four
men to turn him in his bed.

He expressed the greatest satisfaction at the sincerity which had now
been used, and in the gentlest and most benignant manner signified his
thanks to them for thus removing all doubts from his mind, and for giving
him information which it was of so much importance for his eternal
welfare to possess.

His first thought was to request the papal nuncio, Gaetano, to despatch a
special courier to Rome to request the pope's benediction. This was done,
and it was destined that the blessing of his Holiness should arrive in
time.

He next prepared himself to make a general confession, which lasted three
days, father Diego having drawn up at his request a full and searching
interrogatory. The confession may have been made the more simple,
however, by the statement which he made to the priest, and subsequently
repeated to the Infante his son, that in all his life he had never
consciously done wrong to any one. If he had ever committed an act of
injustice, it was unwittingly, or because he had been deceived in the
circumstances. This internal conviction of general righteousness was of
great advantage to him in the midst of his terrible sufferings, and
accounted in great degree for the gentleness, thoughtfulness for others,
and perfect benignity, which, according to the unanimous testimony of
many witnesses, characterised his conduct during this whole sickness.

After he had completed his long general confession, the sacrament of the
Lord's Supper was administered to him. Subsequently, the same rites were
more briefly performed every few days.

His sufferings were horrible, but no saint could have manifested in them
more gentle resignation or angelic patience. He moralized on the
condition to which the greatest princes might thus be brought at last by
the hand of God, and bade the prince observe well hi