NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE stock of genius in England has been again reduced. Lord Beaconsfield died at his house in Curzon Street, at 4.30, on the morning of Tuesday, the 19th inst. His illness had always been more serious than his physicians admitted, 'there being a visible want of recuperative power in the system, 'but for the three or four days preceding Monday the soft spring weather benefited him so much, that even the doctors had 'hope. On Sunday, however, the bitter east wind was again raging, the thermometer fell to 40°, and in the evening of Monday Lord. Beaconsfield sank into a state of partial coma, ,or heavy sleep, from which he never wholly revived. Just -before he died, however, he "raised himself from the pil- lows, threw back his arms, expanded his chest, and his lips were seen to move, as if he were about to speak," the whole action producing in those who watched him a convic- tion that he thought himself again in the Commons, rising to some great effort of debate. Then he sank down, the difficult breathing ceased, he drew a few regular inspirations, and so, as calmly as if in sleep, he died. He had throughout little hope of recovery, but he feared death as little as any other oppo- nent; his mordant humour broke out at intervals, and, though usually silent, he sometimes conversed with all his old clear- .11098 and incisiveness upon public affairs. He was a, childless
• man, almost a kinless one, but his oldest friends were about his bed-side; the man he liked best, Lord Rowton, was with him to the last ; and what he would have preferred to all things, Europe was listening for tidings from his room. His death, like his life, was far from an unhappy one.
