When Malherbe the lyric poet was dying, he reprimanded his nurse for making use of a solecism in her language, and bade the priest stop his trite, cant talk about heaven, saying, "Your wretched style only makes me out of conceit with it." Bide, the English monk and author, on the night of his death continued to dictate to his amanuensis. He asked his scribe how many chapters yet remained to complete the work, and was told there was one. "Take your pen," he commanded, and went on with the work. By and by the scribe said, "It is finished," just as his master breathed his last. Roscommon, when expiring, quoted from his own translation of the "Dies Iræ." "All my possessions for a moment of time!" were the dying words of Queen Elizabeth. The last words of Cardinal Beaufort were, "What! is there no bribing death?" The last words uttered by Byron were, "I must sleep now." In his last moments Crébillon, who had composed two acts of his tragedy of "Catiline," regretted that he had not been spared to complete it. Colorden on the day of his death was visited by his friend Barthe, who requested his opinion of the comedy of the "Selfish Man," which he came to read at his bedside. "You may add an excellent trait to the character of your principal personage," said Colorden. "Say that he obliged an old friend, on the eve of his death, to hear him read a five-act comedy!" "Let me die to the sound of delicious music," were the last words of Mirabeau. Herder died writing an ode to the Deity, his pen on the last line. Heller died feeling his own pulse; and when he found it almost gone, turning his eyes to his brother physician, said, "My friend, the artery ceases to beat!" "Tell Collingwood to bring the fleet to anchor," said Nelson, and expired. The last words of Charles I. were uttered on the scaffold,--"I fear not death! Death is not terrible to me!" Curran's ruling passion was strong in death. Near the close of his earthly hours his physician at his morning call said he "seemed to cough with more difficulty." "That's surprising," said the almost exhausted invalid, "as I have been practising all night." "There is not a drop of blood on my hands," said the expiring Frederick V. of Denmark. "Let not poor Nellie starve" (Nell Gwynn, his mistress), were the last words of Charles II. "I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore do I die in exile," said Pope Gregory VII. with his expiring breath. Anne Boleyn turned to the executioner on the scaffold, and pointing to her neck, said pathetically, "It is small, very small indeed!" The last words of Maria Theresa were, "I do not sleep; I wish to meet my death awake." Madam Roland exclaimed, "O liberty! liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy name!"