Though there may be something rather whimsical in all this, yet I confess I cannot look upon John's situation without strong feelings of interest. With all his odd humours and obstinate prejudices, he is a sterling-hearted old blade. He may not be so wonderfully fine a fellow as he thinks himself, but he is at least twice as good as his neighbours represent him. His virtues are all his own; all plain, home bred and unaffected. His very faults smack of the raciness of his good qualities. His extravagance savours of his generosity; his quarrelsomeness, of his courage; his credulity, of his open faith; his vanity, of his pride; and his bluntness, of his sincerity. They are all the redundancies of a rich and liberal character. He is like his old oak, rough without, but sound and solid within, whose bark abounds with excrescences in proportion to the growth and grandeur of the timber; and whose branches make a fearful groaning and murmuring in the least storm, from their very magnitude and luxuriance. There is something, too, in the appearance of his old family mansion that is extremely poetical and picturesque; and, as long as it can be rendered comfortably habitable, I should almost tremble to see it meddled with, during the present conflict of tastes and opinions. Some of his advisers are no doubt good architects, that might be of service; but many, I fear, are mere levellers, who, when they had once got to work with their mattocks on this venerable edifice, would never stop until they had brought it to the ground, and perhaps buried themselves among the ruins. All that I wish is that John's present troubles may teach him more prudence in the future. That he may cease to distress his mind about other people's affairs; that he may give up the fruitless attempt to promote the good of his neighbours, and the peace and happiness of the world, by dint of the cudgel; that he may remain quietly at home; gradually get his house into repair; cultivate his rich estate according to his fancy; husband his income--if he thinks proper; bring his unruly children into order--if he can; renew the jovial scenes of ancient prosperity; and long enjoy, on his paternal lands, a green, an honourable and a merry old age. THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON (1821). =Source.=--_The Gentleman's Magazine, 1821._ Vol. 91, p. 86. May 5. At St. Helena, of a lingering illness, which had confined him to his bed for upwards of forty days, Napoleon Buonaparte. He desired that after his death his body should be opened, as he suspected he was dying of the same disease which had killed his father--a cancer in the stomach.