counsels, the confidant of all his secrets, you are as dear to him as Chiron was to Achilles, as Achates to Æneas, and as Lælius to Scipio. Complete what you have begun. Love accomplishes all things; he who partakes the honour should participate in the labour. Adieu ! You are the glory of our country, and of your own. I have said a great deal; but I have left much more unsaid. CHARLES THE FIFTH. The Emperor Charles V. toward the end of his days, was sorely depressed in spirit with the fear of torments" after death." Monks were his only companions, with whom he spent his time in chanting hymns. As an expiation for his sins, he in private disciplined himself with such severity, that his whip, found after his death, was tinged with blood. Nor was he satisfied with these acts of mortification: timorous and illiberal solicitude still haunting him, he aimed at something extraordinary, at some new and singular act of piety, to display his zeal, and to merit the favour of Heaven. The act he fixed on was as wild as any that superstition ever suggested to a distempered brain: it was to celebrate his own funeral rites. He ordered his tomb to be erected in the chapel of the monastery : his domestics marched thither in funeral procession, holding black tapers; he followed in his shroud; he was laid in his coffin with much solemnity: the services of the dead were chanted; and he himself joined in the prayer offered up for his requiem, mingling his tears with those of his attendants. The ceremony closed with sprinkling holy water on the coffin; and the assistants retiring, the doors of the chapel were shut. Then Charles rose out of the coffin, and stole privately to his apartment. SEE HOME'S SKETCHES, VOL. II. P. 406, |