CHAPTER XXI.

LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH OF MR HILL.

UNTIL August, 1849, Mr. Hill attended constantly to his 'professional duties; on some occasions giving his entertainments and comic lectures, and frequently performing his round of characters in the theatre.

He visited Saratoga for the purpose of lecturing at the fashionable season, and also for the purpose of recruiting his strength, which had been tasked too hard during this year.

He had announced his intention of giving a performance on a certain evening. On the day advertised he was suddenly attacked by a debilitating disease.

He had never disappointed an assembled audience in consequence of sickness; and having consulted a physician, he sanctioned his leaving his bed, and Mr. Hill most imprudently departed for the lecture-room. Arriving behind the time fixed for the commencement of the lecture, signs of disapprobation were manifested by a part of the audience. When order was restored, Mr. Hill explained the cause of his delay; and said although this was the first time he had kept an audience waiting, it was not the first time he had (silently) waited for an audience.

His explanation was satisfactory, and his performance was applauded throughout.

At its conclusion Mr. Hill left the lecture-room to repose on his death-bed.

This was his last effort on life's mimic scene.

The last scene of all that ends this strange eventful history was near at hand, and is briefly to be recorded.

The one who had so often cheered him in the troubles of early life, was sent for from her peaceful home, to comfort him with her presence in the hour of death. She came the wife and mother-to return to a desolate home a widow, and to carry a father's blessing to the children of his love. On the 27th of September, 1849, George Handel Hill passed from this life, in the fortieth year of his age. He was buried in Green Ridge Cemetery at Saratoga.

The impressive funeral service of the Odd Fellows' ritual was performed at the grave, in which was deposited the body.

The news of his death was received with true sorrow by many who in life had known his stirling worth.

In many of the relations of life he had acted well his part, and the few errors involved in his passage through this bustling world, compared with his virtues and commendable qualities, only give him a title to the common frailties of man, and sink into obscurity when contrasted with the good he hath done in his day of life. When his name is mentioned in connection with the art which it was his pride to practice, the words of the great dramatist, as applied to the memory of a departed humorist, dear to him who spoke them, will be repeated time and again—

"Alas! poor Yorick

I knew him well

A fellow of infinite jest."

If it be true that it is better to have a bad epitaph when you die, than the players' bad report while you

live, it is equally true of the player himself, that he had better have a bad epitaph when dead than the public's bad report while living.

George Handel Hill had no enemies, and his early demise—not yet forty years-in the prime of life, with improved ideas, calculated to make his future efforts valuable to himself and his family, struck his profes sional brethren as one of the mysterious manifestations of Providence, not easily to be reconciled with man's views of the wisdom of the Author of all good. His death was a loss to the American stage, not soon to be supplied.

ANTIQUITIES AND PRODUCTS OF NEW ENGLAND YANKEEOLOGICALLY SPEAKING.

Ir was thought at one time that the English had carried off Plymouth Rock, and made it a part of the Rock of Gibraltar, but when they paid us a visit in red uniform, and tested the material, they found the old stun there, and they found it a Gibraltar tew. T was a great letter among the ancients, and from it arose the society of T totallers. Their idol, the Tea, became so common, arter a spell, that it was emptied by the boxfull intew Boston harbor. Turtle, a shell of which you may see in my collection, gave birth tew the sayin' of "shell out." The tarm hierology, which we use in describin' these things, means that the people in old times were rather toploftical. A number of these matters hev been hard tew diskiver, but they are easy when you know 'em. Now, many on you b'lieve the old sayin' that matches were made in heaven, but I kin prove they were made in New England, 'specially the Lucifer ones. If I had time I might say suthin' about the brimstun at one eend of 'em, but I leave you all tew find out about that, herearter, yourselves. Putty is a great antiquity. Its fluctuation in this day is a remarkable contrast tew the past: putty, anciently, jest stuck where it was put. You hev heern of corn? Well, I guess you hev. Tew vary our subject, and teck things ginerally, we will pass on tew corn, and

that brings us to products of the sile. The race anterior tew the ancient Pilgrims knew suthin' about this vegetable, but it was left to our airly ancestors tew develope the full usefulness of this grain. The Ingens knew how to use it in the rough, but, oh! Johnny cakes and corn juice, to what parfection it was finally brought by the descendants of the primitive fathers. Findin' that by poundin' the grain, mixin' with it a leetle milk and a few eggs, that it made a mixtur of a humanizin' character for the innards, they set tew work to fix a liquid mixture out of the juice, to wash down the cakes, and pursuin' it through a spirit of research, from one diskivery tew anuther, they got out a juice which set their tongues workin' very lively. Findin' it a warmin' mixtur, they kept on takin' it, and finally their legs got tew movin' in seech a zig-zag fashion, that many were shocked with the new drink. This diskivery undoubtedly pinted many intew very crooked ways, and gin rise to the expression that-"This is a great country."

It may be proper, before proceedin' farther, tew state that the ancient New Englanders wore a becomin' kiverin' in airly times. In old times they went in for an all-sufficient amount of brim, while now, hevin' grown cute and savin' of stuff, they cut it so precious narrow, that it is eenamost all shaved off. Y-e-s they dew. In the coat some difference may be diskivered; the antique wraps up the hull body-while in t'other the body is neglected, and the material is all consigned tew the skirt or tail-eend of the kiverin'. Frock coats air an exception, and sacks air different and primitive.

It is a gineral opinion that wooden clocks, like some people's larnin', came naturally tew the ancient inhabitants, but who began to build 'em for exportation re