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enjoy life eternal with her God in heaven. I write this," he concludes, "between hope and fear, while the breath is still fluttering within her."

The deepest gloom now overspread the nation. Even Isabella's long illness had failed to prepare the minds of her faithful people for the sad catastrophe. Isabella in the meantime was deluded with no false hopes. She felt too surely the decay of her bodily strength, and she resolved to perform what temporal duties yet remained for her, while her faculties were yet unclouded.

On the 12th of October she executed that celebrated testament, which reflects so clearly the peculiar qualities of her mind and character. She begins with prescribing the arrangements for her burial. She orders her remains to be transported to Granada, to the Franciscan monastery of Santa Isabella in the Alhambra, and there deposited in a low and humble sepulchre, without other memorial than a plain inscription on it. "But," she continues, "should the king my lord, prefer a sepulchre in some other place, then my will is that my body be there transported, and laid by his side; that the union we have enjoyed in this world, and, through the mercy of God, may hope again for our souls in heaven, may be represented by our bodies in the earth." Then, desirous of correcting

by her example, in this last act of her life, the wasteful pomp of funeral obsequies to which the Castilians were addicted, she commanded that her own should be performed in the plainest and most unostentatious manner, and that the sum saved by this economy should be distributed in alms among the poor.

Concluding in the same beautiful strain of conjugal tenderness in which she began, she says, "I beseech the king, my lord, that he will accept all my jewels, or such as he shall select, so that, seeing them, he may be reminded of the singular love I bore him while living, and that I am now waiting for him in a better world; by which remembrance he may be encouraged to live more justly and holily in this."

She had now adjusted all her worldly concerns, and she prepared to devote herself, during the brief space which remained, to those of a higher nature. It was but the last act of a life of preparation. She had the misfortune, common to persons of her rank, to be separated in her last moments from those whose filial tenderness might have done so much to soften the bitterness of death. But she had the good fortune, most rare, to have secured for this trying hour the solace of disinterested friendship; for she beheld around

her the friends of her childhood, formed and proved in the dark season of adversity.

As she saw them bathed in tears around her bed, she calmly said, "Do not weep for me, nor waste your time in fruitless prayers for my recovery, but pray rather for the salvation of my soul." At length, having received the sacraments, and performed all the offices of a sincere and devout Christian, she gently expired a little before noon, on Wednesday, November 26, 1504, in the fiftyfourth year of her age, and thirtieth of her reign.

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"My hand," says Peter Martyr, in a letter written on the same day to the archbishop of Granada, "falls powerless by my side, for very sorrow. The world has lost its noblest ornament; a loss to be deplored not only by Spain, which she has so long carried forward in the career of glory, but by every nation in Christendom; for she was the mirror of every virtue, the shield of the innocent, and an avenging sword to the wicked. I know of none of her sex, in ancient or modern times, who in my judgment is at all worthy to be named with this incomparable woman."

Isabella was of the middle height, and well proportioned. She had a clear, fresh complexion, with light blue eyes and auburn hair-a style of beauty exceedingly rare in Spain. Her features

were regular, and universally allowed to be uncommonly handsome. The illusion which attaches to rank, more especially when united with engaging manners, might lead us to suspect some exaggeration in the encomiums so liberally lavished on her. But they would seem to be in a great measure justified by the portraits that remain of her, which combine a faultless symmetry of features with singular sweetness and intelligence of expression.

Her manners were most gracious and pleasing. They were marked by natural dignity and modest reserve, tempered by an affability which flowed from the kindliness of her disposition. She was the last person to be approached with undue familiarity; yet the respect which she imposed was mingled with the strongest feelings of devotion and love.

Among her moral qualities, the most conspicuous, perhaps, was her magnanimity. She betrayed nothing little or selfish, in thought or action. Her schemes were vast, and executed in the same noble spirit in which they were conceived. She scorned to avail herself of advantages offered by the perfidy of others. Where she had once given her confidence, she gave her hearty and steady support; and she was scrupulous to redeem any pledge

she had made to those who had ventured in her cause. She sustained Ximenes in all his salutary reforms. She seconded Columbus in the prosecution of his arduous enterprise, and shielded him from the calumny of his enemies. She did the same good service to her favorite, Gonsalvo de Cordova; and the day of her death was, and, as it proved, truly for both, as the last of their good fortune. Artifice and duplicity were abhorrent to her character. She was incapable of harboring any petty distrust or latent malice; and although stern in the execution and exaction of public justice, she made the most generous allowance, and even sometimes advances, to those who had personally injured her.

But the principle which gave a peculiar coloring to every feature of Isabella's mind, was her piety. It shone forth from the very depths of her soul with a heavenly radiance which illuminated her whole character. Fortunately, her earliest years had been passed in the rugged school of adversity, under the eye of a mother who implanted in her serious mind such strong principles of religion as nothing in after-life had power to shake.

WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT,

History of the Reign of Ferdinand

and Isabella the Catholic.

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