With many thanks to your Lordship for your condescending kindness towards me, I remain, my dear Lord, Most truly yours, K K C. SIMEON. CHAP. XXXVII. THE BISHOP'S SEIZURE AT WARMINSTER. LAST INTERVIEW WITH HIM. THE AUTHOR'S ON the 16th of June, 1835, the Bishop held a confirmation in the parish church of Warminster. He slept the preceding night at the house of the Rev. Mr. Dalby, a clergyman high in his regard and esteem, whom he had himself appointed to the vicarage. In the course of the service, while discharging the functions of his sacred office, the Bishop suddenly sunk down, from a slight attack of apoplexy, in a state of insensibility at the communion table. Through the prompt assistance of a medical gentleman present, who bled him in the arm, he was quickly restored to consciousness, and conveyed back in a sedan chair to the vicarage, where he received the most considerate attentions from his kind host and hostess. He was well enough to return to Salisbury the next day; and amended so rapidly, that on the 28th of the month his thanks were publicly offered in the usual form in the Cathedral, and he was soon after able to enjoy society, and partially to resume his former avocations. Before the close of the month I spent some days with him, and found him composed, serene, and cheerful. His recent seizure, however, had fixed a strong conviction on his mind that the term of his mortal pilgrimage could not be distant, and that he had received a merciful warning to make ready for the final summons. The bent of his thoughts and meditations corresponded with these impressions. He talked in his usual pleasant way upon literary topics, but seemed desirous of directing the current of thought to objects of higher interest. The beatific vision of Christ in a future state was a subject he had in past days delighted to converse upon with any intimate friend, and he was now humbly rejoicing in its anticipation. "I receive," he said, "my recent illness as an intimation from the great Head of the Church that my day of active service is almost closed. It is a pleasing reflection to me that it was in the act of prayer I sunk down at Warminster." He then added, that his thoughts at the time were much in unison with a passage that he admired in one of the hymns of Marcus Flaminius, translated by the Rev. W. Barnard. He pointed it out to me as follows: He then requested me to read him the same passage, together with a few additional lines, in the Latin original. Jesu benigne subveni, Te sanctum et optimum Patrem The poems of Flaminius have been alluded to in a preceding chapter. The Bishop greatly admired them, and, as their author's history is little known, and the facts are interesting, we subjoin the following particulars. His family name was Zarrabini; that of Flaminius was assumed. He was born at Imola A. D. 1498, was educated with the utmost care by a pious and learned father, and displayed even in early youth indications of genius, which fixed on him the admiring attention of some of the greatest men of that golden age of modern literature. He pursued his studies at the University of Bologna, and after some years spent in Rome, attached himself to Mattheo Giberti, Bishop of Verona; at which place, and at Padua, he spent several happy years, dividing his time between his patron's palace and a delightful villa which he gave him on the lake of Garda. Here he devoted himself to the study of the Greek philosophy, and to the composition of those beautiful Latin poems which were the admiration of his contemporaries, and which still continue to be read with much interest. Tiraboschi speaks of him thus :-"I am now treating of the sweetest, the most amiable, the most modest of all the Latin poets of that age, that is, of Marc Antonio Flaminio, a name not less dear to virtue than to the muses. He inspired all who knew him with equal sentiments of admiration and tenderness.' The villa on the lake of Garda was his beloved home; but though his tastes were of the simplest kind, and his habits temperate, he suffered severely from a weak and debilitated stomach, and was forced to travel in 1538 to the South of Italy in pursuit of health. Wherever he went, his literary acquirements and amiable manners procured him friends. At Naples he became acquainted with the Spanish reformer, Valdez, and with others who were inclined to the Protestant communion. His own mind was soon deeply interested in the Io parlo del più dolce, del più amabile, del più modesto fra tutti i poeti Latini di questo secolo, cioè di Marcantonio Flaminio, nome caro alla virtù non meno che alle muse, e che in tutti color che il conobbero destò sentimenti di ammirazione al pari che di tenerezza. Tiraboschi, lib. iii. c. 31. |