In truth, he was soon past writing; death was advancing upon him with rapid strides, while earthly prospects were growing, daily, darker and more threatening. It is painful to reflect that his last hours, ere the struggling mind had sunk into insensibility, were disturbed by the apprehension of inability to meet a couple of bills of comparatively trifling amount, on the point, as he believed, of becoming due. On Friday, the 13th of August, he took finally to his bed, the stream hurried on with increasing velocity as it approached the fall--a brief agitated interval, happily not neglected, was left for the first, last work of erring man, and on the evening of the 24th he expired. The disorder under which he had been labouring for years, arose from a diseased state of the liver and stomach, brought on partly by mental anxiety, but principally, it is to be feared, by that habit of over-indulgence at table, the curse of Colonial life, which he had early acquired, and to which he held with fatal perseverance to the end. It needed no ordinary powers to enable him to sustain the contest so long; but his frame was robust and his constitution vigorous; and he seems to have possessed in a remarkable degree that power of maintaining the supremacy of mind over matter, which rendered him indifferent to, or unconscious of, the first slow approaches of decay. He was buried with extreme privacy at Fulham; a simple stone bearing his name and age marks the spot, which is immediately opposite the chancel window, and within a few paces of his former home. [Illustration:(end of section icon)] THE RAMSBOTTOM PAPERS. 1822-1831. _NOW FIRST COLLECTED._ [The Letters of Mrs. Ramsbottom, complete and unabridged, are here published in a collected form for the _first_ time. They originally appeared in the pages of the _John Bull_ newspaper, where their publication extended over a period of ten years. A complete set of the _John Bull_ is now very rare, and, in proof of this, we may state that when a London publisher recently issued a cheap edition of the "Ramsbottom Letters," _thirteen_ were all that he could give, whereas the whole of _the twenty-nine_ are here given, and genuine--just as they left the pen of the witty author.] THE RAMSBOTTOM PAPERS. I. MRS. RAMSBOTTOM'S PARTY. April, 1822. On Thursday last, Mrs. Ramsbottom, of Pudding-lane, opened her house to a numerous party of her friends. The drawing-room over the compting-house, and the small closet upon the stairs, were illuminated in a most tasteful manner, and Mr. Ramsbottom's own room was appropriated to card-tables, where all-fours and cribbage were the order of the night. Several pounds were won and lost. The shop was handsomely fitted up for quadrilles, which began as soon as it was dark; the rooms being lighted with an abundance of patent lamps, and decorated with artificial flowers. The first quadrille was danced by--