LAST ILLNESS OF WM. WIRT.

The Richmond Compiler of the 17 ^th ult. contains an affecting account of the last illness of Mr. Wirt, written by a gentleman who attended him through that illness. We proceed to extract the principal part of it.— Free Elector

“On the evening of Saturday, the 8 ^th instant, he was in playful spirits, and sanguine of the success of an argument which he was to make in court on Monday. He felt better satisfied with his preparation, he said, than for any he had made for years before. On Sunday he walked to the Capitol to Church—it was a damp, chilly day, and the Representatives’ Hall was crowded and warm. To go immediately from it into the cold, damp air, and walk slowly, as he did, a mile to his lodgings, might have been deemed imprudent in one whose health was less precarious than his then seemed.

”That night he complained of a slight indisposition, and in the family worship of the evening prayed with an unusual fervor, and seemingly a foreboding spirit which he communicated not save to his God. But even this was sufficient to excite vague apprehensions in a family always ready to note and to dwell upon whatsoever might seem to bode danger or safety to a friend so dear.

On Monday he was confined to his room; no serious apprehensions were entertained, but a physician was called in—it was only a cold. On Tuesday he was worse, but we feared not the result. He complained of stiffness of the muscles of the throat and swelling of the glands—milk poultices were applied to his face, but they gave not relief. On Wednesday he was much worse so much as to excite alarm; on the evening of this day it was first discovered that the disease was Erysipelas, ”a new enemy,” of which Mr. Wirt then expressed his fears. “It was not the foe with which he had been so long accustomed to contend.”

His constitution was too weak, as the physicians apprehended, to stand the vigorous treatment which would have been most efficient in destroying the disease. By Friday, the alarm had become very serious—the door was crowded by anxious inquiring friends, and those who met in the street asked from each other the latest intelligence. The affliction of the family was extreme, but there was still hope. On Saturday, his daughter and son-in-law arrived from Baltimore, and were shocked to find the case so much worse than their worst fears.

Scarcely a glimmer of hope was left to us, but this feeble ray was most anxiously watched and cherished. When once shadowed by so deep a gloom, the least of the twinkling stars in the firmament is more precious to our sight, than is the sun itself in the noontide of an unclouded day.

Death from the first day of his illness, had continued to approach with a steady pace, and in a form more than usually hideous. The fine countenance so bright with intellect, was sadly altered—by the disease partly, and partly by remedies so fruitlessly applied. The eyes had lost their speculation—the eloquent voice was hushed—the divinity had departed from the temple, and its walls were defaced, but light still lingered, loath to abandon a habitation which had so long given to a thing in itself so little desirable and so worthless, beauty, purity, and worth.

The attending physicians were Doctors Hunt and Hall; none could have been more anxiously attentive; the latter staid by him every night of the last four or five.

About noon on Monday, consciousness returned; and he had power to speak a few words. Nature had made a last effort to permit him to take leave of his family and friends, to give them assurance that he died in christian hope, and to join them in prayer to his God. The Rev. Mr. Post officiated. In so much of the prayer as related to his family and his own acceptance with heaven, he seemed heartily to join—but when a petition was offered that he might be restored to health, he audibly dissented “no, no!” He had done and suffered enough in this contentious world, and was entitled to the release and the transfer to a higher existence, which the good and just are authorized to expect.

It was now become manifest, even to the most sanguine, that recovery was beyond the remotest probability. He was too shining a mark for death longer to miss. All that was left to us was to smooth his passage to the tomb—to moisten his parched lips and tongue, and perform such little offices of affection as might soothe his last sufferings.

During the last eighteen hours, he was tranquil as a child. Breathing and warmth were the only evidence of life—no motion, no pain, no consciousness, there lay the wreck of WILLIAM WIRT.

Three friends besides the clergymen attended his bedside during the night—his family too, worn as they were by nearly a week’s constant watching, could not be induced to take repose. Anguish and affection gave them strength to bear what would have exhausted the strongest men It was a night long to be remembered—a night of silent, despairing sorrow, which conveys to the heart a language never to be forgot, a language which is not for a pen like mine to transcribe.

Tuesday morning breaks upon the scene still unaltered, save that life fluttered more faintly and all pulse was gone. About 11 o’clock the breathing became gradually more distant and more feeble—was suspended or imperceptible—another breath—he’s gone! So calm, so imperceptibly did he make his exit, that the precise moment of his departure could scarcely be marked—without a sign or a struggle his bright spirit has departed from amongst us to a state of existence higher, mightier, and more glorious.

Upon a highly excited mind a slight incident will sometimes make a deep and lasting impression. As the last flickerings of life were failing—while his whole family, and the friends who had watched with them, were grouped around his bed, and in silent, deep attention to the awful scene, all held their breath, and their hearts and pulse stood still, a few soft, low notes from a pet bird, which had before been so silent that its presence in the room was unremarked, fell with startling sweetness on the ear. Only once before during his illness, had it been known to sing. On the preceding day, at the conclusion of the last act of devotion in which he ever joined, these same soft notes had mingled with the solemn ‘Amen.’