An account of the last illness, decease, and post mortem appearances, of Napoleon Bonaparte / By Archibald Arnott ... To which is added a letter from Dr. Arnott to Lieutenant-General Sir Hudson Lowe ... giving a succinct statement of Napoleon Bonaparte's disease and demise.

  • Arnott, Archibald, 1771-1855.
Date:
1822
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An account of the last illness, decease, and post mortem appearances, of Napoleon Bonaparte / By Archibald Arnott ... To which is added a letter from Dr. Arnott to Lieutenant-General Sir Hudson Lowe ... giving a succinct statement of Napoleon Bonaparte's disease and demise. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Hand-Writings op Eminent Men.—It is generally be¬ lieved that men of genius write in a very obscure, infirm, and eccentric character, such as Byron, Chalmers, Jeffrey, and Bonaparte. Washington wrote a fair, even, manly, straight¬ forward line, every letter legible and distinct; Jefferson’s hand-writing was bold and masculine ; Bonaparte wrote a most unreasonable scrawl; Burke’s was uneven and hurried; Hamilton wrote a light running-hand sparing of ink ; Can¬ ning’s penmanship has a chaste and classical appearance; Brougham writes a hasty hand, hut with a good pen, and full of ink ; Feel writes with a stiff pen, but with considerable tasce and firmness ; Dr. Chalmers writes as if he used the feather end dipped in ink—a real scrawl; W. Irving writes a perfect lawyer’s hand, as though he wished no one to read it but himself ; Jeffrey wrote as if he wrote against time, with a stick dipped in ink, nothing so unintelligible; Crabbe’s hand-writing was described as very bad also ; and Sir Har- court Lee’s so much so that it has been compared to the legs of a spider, dipped in ink, dancing on a wall. When Bonaparte dted at St. HoJerilt it is well kridwn that hi* heart was extracted, with the design of being preserved. The British physician who had charge of that wondrous organ had deposited it in a silver basin, in water, and retired to rest, leaving two tapers burning beside it in his chamber. He often confesses to his friends, while narrating the particulars, that he felt nervously anxious, as the custodier of such a deposit; and though he reclined he did not sleep While lying thus awake, he heard, during the silence of the night, first a rustling noise, then a plunge among the water in the basin, and then the sound of an object falling with a rebound on the floor, all occurring with the quickness of thought. Dr. A— sprang from his bed, and the cause of the intrusion on his repose was soon ex¬ plained—it was an enormous rat dragging the heart of Bona¬ parte to its hole. A few moments more, and that which before had been too vast in its ambition to be satisfied with the so¬ vereignty of continental Europe would have been found even in a more degrading position than the dust of Caesar stopping a beer barrel—it would, have been devoured as the supper of a rat! L_____ _ An Account of the Last Illness, Decease, and Post Mortem Appearance of Napoleon Buonaparte. By Archibald Arnott, M. D. Surgeon 20th Regiment. To which is added a Letter from Dr. Arnott to Lieut.-General Sir Hudson Lowe, K.C.B. giving a succinct statement of Napoleon Buonaparte’s Disease and Demise. 8vo. 2s. 6d. ■MB