He spent his spare time watching men lay out for him new parterres and planting trees; man began with a garden, and in sickness and sorrow ends with one. The Earth-Mother is the one friend that never deserts us. For some time he took a daily dose of senna, which was probably the best thing he could have taken in the absence of Epsom salts, but nothing could get rid of the enormous amount of rich food that poured down his gullet. He was always thinking of death, and there seems to be little doubt that he really did rehearse his own funeral. He held a great and solemn procession, catafalque and all, and, kneeling in front of the altar, handed to the officiating friar a taper, which was symbolical of his own soul. He then sat during the afternoon in the hot sun, and it was thought that he caught a feverish chill, for he took to his bed and never left it alive; for hours he held the portrait of Isabella in his hands, recalling her fresh young beauty; he clasped to his bosom the crucifix which he had taken from her dead fingers just before they had become stiff. Then came the fatal headache and vomiting which so often usher in the close of chronic Bright’s disease. We are told that he lay unconscious, holding his wife’s crucifix, till he said: “Lord, I am coming to Thee!” His hand relaxed--was the motor-centre becoming œdematous?--and a bishop held the crucifix before his dying eyes. Charles sighed, “Aye--Jesus!” and died. Whether or no he died so soon after saying these things as the good friar would have us believe, it is certain that his end was edifying and pious, and such as he would have wished. The great interest of Charles V to a doctor, now that the questions over which he struggled so fiercely are settled, is that we can seldom trace so well in any historical character the course of the disease from which he died. If Charles had been content to live on milky food and drink less it is probable that he would have lived for years; he might have yielded to the constant entreaties of his friends and resumed the imperial crown; he might have taken into his strong hands the guidance of Spain and the Netherlands that was overwhelming Philip; his calm good sense might have averted the rising flood that ultimately led to the revolt of the Netherlands; possibly he might even have averted the Spanish Armada, though it seems improbable that he could have lived thirty years. But Spain might have avoided that arrogant behaviour which has since that day caused so many of her troubles; with the substitution of Philip for Charles at that critical time she took a wrong turning from which she has never since recovered.