were taken to prevent the encounter until too late.

Not until nearly two o'clock in the morning did any of the Marlborough Street emissaries reach Lord Camelford's door, by which time the bird had flown. For his lordship, who had gained no little experience in matters of honor, had taken good care to "efface" himself from his Bond Street lodging, and slept the night instead at a tavern in Oxford Street.

Unable to come to terms the two principals mounted their horses and rode along the Uxbridge Road, past the wall which then bounded Kensingtou Gardens and so came to the Horse and Groom, a little beyond Notting Hill turnpike-gate. At the Horse and Groom they dismount, cross the road, and proceed at a rapid pace along the path towards the fields at the back of Holland House. It was now about eight o'clock, and the sun had just He employed the quiet hours of this risen upon a wild March morning, the his last night upon earth in making seconds measured the ground and his will, bequeathing his estates to his placed their men at a distance of thirty sister, Lady Grenville. In this he in- paces. One or two of Lord Holland's serted a clause which proves him to outdoor servants were up and about have done at least one just and noble the grounds, but while they stood and act, for in it he wholly acquits his an- stared, the signal was given and Lord tagonist of blame by a positive state- Camelford fired first and missed. A ment that he was the aggressor in quarter of a minute more, Best hesievery sense. "Should I therefore lose tated, and some think he even now my life in a contest of my own seeking, asked his adversary to retract, but the I most solemnly forbid my friends or signal was repeated, and he fired, relations from instituting any vexatious whereupon Lord Camelford was seen proceeding against my antagonist; " to fall at full length to the ground. and he further adds that if, "notwith-But he was not dead yet, though he standing the above declaration, the would never stand again, and oh ! laws of the land be put in force against irony of ironies, he declared that he him, I desire that this part of my will" was satisfied." may be made known to the king."

66

They all ran to pick him up, and he Early the following morning Mr. gave his hand to his antagonist, saying, Best called at the coffee-house in Ox-"Best, I am a dead man, and though ford Street, where he made a last effort you have killed me I fully forgive you; to prevail upon his lordship to retract it was not your fault." the expressions he had used. "Camelford," said he, we have been friends, and I know the generosity of your nature. Upon my honor you have been imposed upon by Mrs. Simmons. Do not insist on using expressions which in the end may cause the death of either you or me."

To this Lord Camelford replied with some emotion, "Best, this is child's play; the thing must go on." Yet in his own heart he acquitted Mr. Best, for he acknowledged in confidence to his second that he was in the wrong. The reason of all this obstinacy probably lay in the fact that Best had the credit of being a fatal shot, and Camelford fancied his reputation might suffer if he made a concession, however slight, to such a person.

The report of firearms had alarmed several other persons, so that Best was obliged to seek safety in flight. One of the gardeners was sent for a surgeon, and a sedan chair was soon procured, in which Lord Camelford was carried off to Little Holland House, where he was attended by two surgeons, an express being sent off to his brother-in-law, Lord Grenville, and to his cousin the Rev. Mr. Cockburn. He was put to bed and his clothes cut off him, but from the first the surgeons gave no hope, for the bullet was buried in the body and could not be extracted, and the lower limbs were paralyzed by its action.

He lingered in great agony for three whole days, when mortification set in and put an end to his sufferings. Thus

!

died Thomas Pitt Lord Camelford at | punishment; but in whose cases apthe early age of twenty-nine, in the peared circumstances of alleviation. prime and full vigor of manhood, by a He was passionately fond of science, death entirely due to his own wilful and though his mind, while a young obstinacy and foolish pride.

To his cousin, Mr. Cockburn, who remained with him until he expired, he is said to have spoken with deep contrition of his past life, and in the moments of his greatest pain cried out that he sincerely hoped the agonies he then endured might expiate the sins he had committed.

seaman, had been little cultivated, yet
in his later years he had acquired a
prodigious fund of information, upon
almost every subject connected with
literature. In early life he had gloried
much in puzzling the chaplains of the
ships in which he had served, and to
enable him to gain such triumphs, he
had read all the sceptical books he
could procure, and thus his mind be-
came involuntarily tainted with infi-
delity.
But as his judgment grew
more matured, he discovered of him-
self the fallacy of his reasonings, and
the folly of living an irreligious life.

"I wish," says Mr. Cockburn, "with
all my soul, that the unthinking vota-
ries of dissipation and infidelity could
have been present at the death-bed of
this poor man, could have heard his
expressions of contrition and of re-
liance on the mercy of his Creator;
could have heard his dying exhortation
to one of his intimate friends, to live in
future a life of peace and virtue. I
think it would have made an impres-wise and enlightened inhabitants of the
sion on their minds, as it did on mine,
not easily to be effaced."

On the day after his death, an inquest was held upon his body, when, strange as it may sound to those who have read this brief history, twelve

rural village of Kensington, for such it was when George III. was king, unanimously returned a verdict of Wilful murder," against some person or persons unknown.

He was a man, says Cockburn, whose real character was but little known to the world; his imperfections and his follies were often brought before the It is evident from all I have said, public, but the counterbalancing vir- that Lord Camelford had in him the tues he manifested were but little elements of a good naval officer; but heard of. Though violent to those he was proud, and obstinate beyond whom he imagined to have wronged measure, and never could be brought him, yet to his acquaintances he was to bow to the rules and requirements mild, affable, and courteous; a stern of the service. From a child he would adversary, but the kindest and most not obey or be amenable to reason; generous of friends. That warmth of he delighted to set all authority at dedisposition, which prompted him so fiance; at school it was the same, unhappily to great improprieties, afterwards in the navy; and he was prompted him also to the most lively efforts of active benevolence. From the many prisons in the metropolis, from the various receptacles of human misery, he received numberless petitions; and no petition ever came in vain. He was often the dupe of the designing and crafty supplicant, but he was more often the reliever of real sorrow, and the soother of unmerited woe. Constantly would he make use of that influence which rank and fortune gave him with the government to interfere on behalf of those malefactors whose crimes had subjected them to

true to his character to the very last. The day before his death he wrote or rather dictated a codicil to his will. In it he requests his relations not to wear mourning for him, and then gives particular instructions as to the disposal of his remains after death.

In this remarkable document he prefaced his wish by the statement that while other persons desired to be buried in their native land however great the distance might be, he on the contrary wished to be interred in a distant land. "I wish my body," says he, "to be removed as soon as

may be convenient, to a country far | scription: "The Right Hon. Lord distant, to a spot not near the haunts Camelford, died 10th March, 1804, aged of men, but where the surrounding 29 years." His body still lies where it scenery may smile upon my remains. " was first temporarily interred, for the He then went into details. This place war lasted a long while, and at its close was by the lake of St. Pierre, in the Lord Camelford's remains were forgotcanton of Berne, in Switzerland, and ten, and there seems never to have the exact spot was marked by three been any further attempt to carry out trees. He desired that the centre tree the testamentary wishes of the deceased might be taken up, and his body placed peer. Many persons have actually in the cavity, and that no monument or been shown by former vergers of St. stone might mark the place. He then Anne's what purported to be the coffin gave a reason for this selection: "At containing all that remained of Lord the foot of this tree I formerly passed Camelford, probably fish-basket and many hours in solitude contemplating all, but of late years the vaults under the mutability of human affairs; " and the church have been filled with sawas a compensation, he left the propri- dust. There he most probably will etors of the spot described, 1,000l. remain until the "last trumpet shall That at eleven years of age he or any sound" buried in sawdust, alongside other boy should have meditated under the coffin of that other eccentric inditrees upon the "mutability of human vidual, the adventurer, Theodore, king affairs," is nonsense. He was medi- of Corsica. At any rate, there seems tating upon that subject as he lay little chance that he will ever rest in a-dying, and it was then that he re- the romantic spot he fancied, and paid membered the green meadows, the for. blue lake, and the peaceful hours in the place where he had spent his innocent childhood, when he little dreamed that he should kill poor Peterson by a pistol-shot, and be killed by a pistol himself in retribution.

His fine property of Boconnoc Park, Cornwall, he bequeathed to his sister Anne, Lady Grenville, who was his sole executrix. He also left considerable sums to be devoted to charitable purposes. Lady Grenville outlived her brother sixty years, dying in full possession of her faculties, at the age of ninety in the year 1863.

From The Revue des Revues. MENTAL WORK.

But in this matter of the disposal of his remains he was not destined to have his own way. The body was removed the day after his death from Kensington to Camelford House, and thence on the 17th March it was taken and placed within the vaults of St. Anne's, Soho, beside the coffin which held the remains of Theodore, king of WHEN I say that a man has a horror Corsica, pending its removal to Switz- of work, I mean the work of original erland; for preparations had actually production of ideas and not that of been made to carry out Lord Camel- exercise, by means of which the menford's wishes. He was embalmed and tal organs are kept in a state of health. his remains packed up for transporta- For instance, that which is commonly tion in an enormously long fish-basket called the imaginative faculty, taken in in place of a shell. But at the last its restricted sense, is only the faculty moment, when all was ready, war of associating a great many mental was again proclaimed and the body images together, in order to realize was unable to be transported. It was numerous and varied combinations of thereupon placed temporarily in a mag- these, which, in certain cases, produce nificent coffin ornamented with a pro- great psychic pleasure. Take a volume fusion of silver clasps and covered with of poems, written by some fanciful rose-colored velvet and surmounted by poet, as Shelley or Baudelaire; these a coronet, and with the following in-verses excite in us images and their

many and varied combinations, and | At first the writer or scholar was give to our imaginations the means of obliged to make an effort in order to exercising it very pleasantly. This is affirm his originality, that is to say, in exercise. Real work, on the contrary, order to study the phenomena of life would be that of evoking these images according to his temperament and inin the mind without the exterior means tellectual inclinations; he was obliged of poetry, painting, sculpture, etc., to create his style, if an artist, and his exactly as the poet, painter, and sculp- method and system, if a scholar; in tor create the works which later set to brief, he was obliged to accustom his work the imagination of men. Every-mind to work in a certain way. When body reads books, but very few write the intellectual habits are formed, work them; and of those who do write, very becomes much easier, but also less few really work, that is, write original original. The work is better done, things, which are the result of personal more rapidly, but everything has a mental associations; the others imitate common character. Take the series of or copy, which, again, is but mental Spencer's works, "First Principles," exercise. Receptivity, that is, the "Principles of Biology," "Psycholfaculty of comprehending and assimilating ideas, is very common; but true creative power, on the contrary, is very rare.

ogy," "Sociology," etc. You find here the same fundamental principle, that of evolution, applied to different phenomena, and the same simple style, a little hard, but of a precision which has never been surpassed. Take all

But there is another, and still more decisive proof, in support of the theory of the least effort. Not only is almost the romances of Balzac or of Zola; the all that which is commonly called work general construction, the framework, simply exercise, but real work tends the fundamental type of characters, the to become transformed into exercise. method of psychological analysis, the Every mental act, several times re- style, are the same. A few writers of peated, becomes automatic; thus, for more powerful genius have succeeded example, certain associations of ideas, in creating several types of art, as, for which become established in the mind, example, Shakespeare; but in general, finish, if often repeated, by being so all great writers have the one form of closely united, that one of these ideas art. Those who succeed in making an evokes all the others, without the least original creation of each work, write mental effort. Every one knows that very little and leave few works. Great each writer and each scholar has his philosophers remain prisoners of their own particular character; it would be systems, because, having once created impossible to confound a romance of a grand theory, they are not capable of Zola with one of Dickens; a drama of another creative effort, and observe Shakespeare with one of Goethe; a facts according to the theory to which book of Spencer with one of Hegel. their minds are accustomed. The artist Now the character of a writer is only ends by having mannerisms, because the result of the transformation of accustomed to see and represent things creative work into mental exercise. in a certain way.

For EIGHT DOLLARS remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually for. warded for a year, free of postage.

Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co.

Single copies of the LIVING AGE, 18 cents.