seemed as if he were now bidding farewell, in the contemplation of this
masterpiece, to the noble art which he loved with a love that years, and
cares, and sickness could not quench, and that will ever be remembered
with his better fame. He remained so long abstracted and motionless,
that the physician who was on the watch thought it right to awake him
from his reverie. On being spoken to, he turned round and said, "I feel
myself ill." The doctor felt his pulse, and pronounced him in a fever.
He was seated at the moment in the open gallery, to the west of his
apartments, into which the sinking sun poured his tempered splendor
through the boughs of the great walnut-tree. From this pleasant spot,
filled with the fragrance of the garden and the murmur of the fountain,
and bright with glimpses of the golden Vera, they carried him to the
gloomy chamber of his sleepless nights, and laid him on the bed from
which he was to rise no more.

His old enemy, the gout, had not troubled him for several days. The
disorder with which he was now attacked was a tertian fever, likewise a
malady familiar to his shattered frame. The fits now were of unusual
violence, the cold fit lasting twice as long as the hot. His physician
twice attempted to relieve him by bleeding, but the operation seemed
rather to augment than allay the violence of the disease. Being sensible
that his hour was come, and wishing to add a codocil to his will, he
dispatched a messenger to Valladolid, to the regent Juana, requiring an
authorization for his secretary Gaztelu to act as a notary for the
purpose. The princess, seeing the imminence of the danger, along with
the authorization, instantly sent off her physician, Cornelio, to Yuste,
while she herself prepared to follow. It is possible that she also sent
father Borja, to pay a last visit of consolation to his friend.

The emperor had made his will at Brussels, on the 6th of June, 1554. The
codocil is dated at Yuste, the 9th of September, 1558. From the great
length of this document, its minuteness, and the frequent recurrence of
provisions in case of his death before he should see his son, an event
which now was beyond hope, it seems to have been prepared some time
before. But as it must have been read to him before his trembling hand
affixed the necessary signature, it remains as a proof that one of his
last acts was to urge Philip II., by his love and allegiance, and his
hope of salvation, to take care that "th