out ten days before his death, a great and marked change came very
suddenly over him: his eyes assumed a strange glazed appearance, and his
voice was altogether altered. His mind, however, continued calm and
collected as ever. He moaned continually, though gently, assuring us,
however, repeatedly that he felt no pain, "but an exhaustion that is
quite inconceivable by _you_." Not many days before his end, he gave us
a signal proof of the integrity of his reasoning faculties. Two of his
friends, I and another, were sitting with him, and he told us, as he
often latterly had, that he heard strange voices in the room. He asked
the one who sat next him if there were not strangers at that moment in
the room speaking? When assured that there were not, he said very
earnestly, "Will you, however, oblige me by looking immediately under
the sofa, and tell me whether there is really no one there?" His friend
looked, and solemnly assured him that there was no one there. "Now,"
said he, with some difficulty, after a pause, and suddenly looking at
us, "how extraordinary this is! Of course, after what you say, I am
bound to believe you, and the voices I hear are consequently imaginary:
yet I hear them uttering _articulate sounds_; they are human voices;
they speak to me intelligibly. What can make that impression upon the
organ of hearing--upon the tympanum? How is it done? There must be some
strange disorder in the organs. I can't understand it, nor the state of
my own faculties!" Then he relapsed into the state of drowsy, moaning,
half-unconsciousness, in which he spent the last fortnight of his life.
For a few days previously, no more briefs or papers were taken in by the
clerk: but one, a case for an opinion, which had been brought about a
week before, Mr. Smith immediately read over with a view of answering
it. In consequence of a communication from the physician, we at once
summoned Mr. Smith's two brothers, the one from Dublin Castle, and the
other (an officer on board the Devastation Steam Frigate) from
Portsmouth. Both of them came as quickly as possible, and remained to
the last in affectionate attendance upon their afflicted brother. About
three days before his death, he was asked if he wished to receive the
sacrament. "Yes," he immediately replied, "I was about to ask for it,
but feared I was too ill to go through with it. I request it may now be
administered to me as soon as can be, for I am sensible that I have no
time to lo