Note 5 — Last Words of Distinguished Men and Women.

Lablache (1794-1858), the celebrated French singer and actor, whose wonderful voice, embracing two full octaves, has been described as firmer and more expressive than that of any singer of his time or before it, attempted to sing upon his death-bed. He bade his son go to the piano and accompany him. The young man, struggling with emotion, obeyed. Lablache sang in English the first stanza of Home, Sweet Home. At the second stanza the muscles of the throat refused to move; not a note could he sound. In distress and great amazement he gazed around him for a moment, and then, closing his eyes, fell asleep in death.

It is recorded of Captain Hamilton, whose portrait was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, that he came to his death in this wise: "He imprudently ventured in a boat from his ship to land at Plymouth, on a tempestuous day, all in his impatience to rejoin his wife ashore. The boat turned keel upwards, and the captain, being a good swimmer, trusted to his skill, and would not accept of a place on the keel, but, that he might leave room there for others, clung merely to the edge of the boat. His great coat was a hindrance to him, and this he attempted to throw off; but, in the words of Lord Eliot, whose too are the italics, 'finding his strength fail, he told the men he must yield to his fate, and soon afterwards sank while singing a psalm.'"—Francis Jacox.

When Latour was guillotined at Foix, in 1864, for the murder of a family of four persons, great was the throng in the streets, despite the heavy rain that fell; for, to ensure a good attendance, the condemned man had announced his intention to compose for the occasion a series of verses, which he would sing on his way (in a cart, vis-à-vis with messieurs the headsmen) from prison to scaffold. And sing them he did, all the way—a matter of some three hundred and fifty yards. Lightly he tripped up the steps of the scaffold, and then, after a deliberate survey of the crowd below and all around, he thundered forth, tonna, the following lines—a parody, or rather a personal appropriation, of the Marseillaise:

Being then tied to the plank and flung into the usual horizontal position in order to be brought under the blade, he still went on—Allons, pauvre victime, Ton jour de mort ... —until a heavy sound was heard, the blade fell, something else fell with it, and all was over.—Jacox.