BY the time this paper appears, I shall have been talking
for twelve months; ¹ and it is thought I should take my
leave in a formal and seasonable manner. Valedictory
eloquence is rare, and death-bed sayings have not often
hit the mark of the occasion. Charles Second, wit and
sceptic, a man whose life had been one long lesson in
human incredulity, an easy-going comrade, a manŖ3uvring
king--remembered and embodied all his wit and scepti-
cism along with more than his usual good humour in the
famous "I am afraid, gentlemen, I am an unconscionable
time a-dying."

An unconscionable time a-dying--there is the picture
("I am afraid, gentlemen,") of your life and of mine. The
sands run out, and the hours are "numbered and im-
puted," and the days go by; and when the last of these
finds us, we have been a long time dying, and what else?
The very length is something, if we reach that hour of
separation undishonoured; and to have lived at all is
doubtless (in the soldierly expression) to have served.

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