The Canadian Portrait Gallery - Volume 3 (of 4) — John Shaqi
The Canadian Portrait Gallery - Volume 3 (of 4)Dent, John Charles
History
The Canadian Portrait Gallery - Volume 3 (of 4)
Dent, John Charles
Canada -- Biography
general England ever saw." Statesmen and princes hung upon his words,
and even upon his nod; and lovely women languished for his smiles. When
he died, full of years and honours, and everything of good which a
grateful nation has to bestow, his body lay in state at Chelsea
Hospital. It was visited by the high and mighty ones of the Empire, and
was contemplated with an almost superstitious awe. It was finally borne
with regal pomp, through streets draped in mourning, and thronged by a
countless multitude, to its final resting-place in the crypt of the
noblest of English cathedrals. The funeral rites were solemnized amid
the tears of a nation, and formed an event in that nation's history. The
obsequies of "the Iron Duke" took place on the 18th of November, 1852.
In less than three months from that date his friend Colonel Talbot also
went the way of all flesh. But by how different a road! His life, though
it had by no means been spent in vain, had had little to commend it to
the emulation or envy of mankind. Its most vigorous season had been
passed amid the solitude of the Canadian forest, and in its decline it
had become the prey of selfishness and neglect. Colonel Talbot died in a
small room in the house of a man who had once been his servant. He must
have tasted the bitterness of death many times before he finally entered
into his rest. Neither wife, child, nor relative ministered to his
wants. But scant ceremony was vouchsafed to his remains. His body,
instead of lying in state, was deposited in a barn, and was finally
attended to its last obscure resting-place in a little Canadian village
by a handful of friends and acquaintances. The weather was piercingly
cold, and we may be sure that the obsequies were not unnecessarily
prolonged. Surely the force of antithesis could not much farther go!
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