Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, No. 359, September 1845

His death took place in 1837.

"On Thursday the 30th of March, I met him at a general assembly of the Academy; the night, though very cold, was fine, he walked a great part of the way home with me. The most trifling occurrences of that evening remain on my memory. As we proceeded along Oxford Street, he heard a child cry on the opposite side of the way: the griefs of childhood never failed to arrest his attention, and he crossed over to a little beggar girl who had hurt her knee; he gave her a shilling and some kind words, which, by stopping her tears, showed that the hurt was not very serious, and we continued our walk. Some pecuniary losses he had lately met with had disturbed him, but more because they involved him with persons disposed to take advantage of his good feelings, than from their amount. He spoke of these with some degree of irritation, but turned to more agreeable subjects, and we parted at the west end of Oxford Street, laughing. I never saw him again alive.

"The whole of the next day he was busily engaged finishing his picture of Arundel Mill and Castle. One or two of his friends who called on him saw that he was not well, but they attributed this to confinement and anxiety with his picture, which was to go in a few days to the Exhibition. In the evening he walked out for a short time on a charitable errand connected with the Artists' Benevolent Fund. He returned about nine o'clock, ate a hearty supper, and, feeling chilly, had his bed warmed – a luxury he rarely indulged in. It was his custom to read in bed; between ten and eleven he had read himself to sleep, and his candle, as usual, was removed by a servant. Soon after this, his eldest son, who had been at the theatre, returned home, and, while preparing for bed in the next room, his father awoke in great pain, and called to him. So little was Constable alarmed, however, that he at first refused to send for medical assistance. He took some rhubarb and magnesia, which produced sickness, and he drank copiously of warm water, which occasioned vomiting, but the pain increasing, he desired that Mr Michele, his near neighbour, should be sent for, who very soon attended. In the mean time Constable had fainted, his son supposing he had fallen asleep. Mr Michele instantly ordered some brandy to be brought; the bed-room of the patient was at the top of the house, the servant had to run down-stairs for it, and before it could be procured life was extinct; and within half an hour of the first attack of pain.

"A post-mortem investigation was made by Professor Partridge, in the presence of Mr George Young and Mr Michele, but, strange to say, the extreme pain Constable had suffered could only be traced to indigestion, no indications of disease were any where discovered, sufficient, in the opinion of those gentlemen, to have produced at that time a fatal result. Mr Michele, in a letter to me, describing all he had witnessed, says, 'It is barely possible that the prompt application of a stimulant might have sustained the vital principle, and induced reaction in the functions necessary to the maintenance of life.'

"Constable's eldest son was prevented from attending the funeral by an illness brought on by the painful excitement he had suffered; but the two brothers of the deceased, and a few of his most intimate friends, followed the body to Hampstead,[3 - "I cannot but recall here a passage in a letter to Mr Fisher, written by Constable nearly ten years before his death, in which, after speaking of having removed his family to Hampstead, he says, 'I could gladly exclaim, here let me take my everlasting rest!'"] where some of the gentlemen residing there, who had known Constable, voluntarily joined the procession in the churchyard. The vault which contained the remains of his wife was opened, he was laid by her side, and the inscription which he had placed on the tablet over it,

'Eheu! quam tenui e filo pendet
Quidquid in vitâ maxime arridet!'

might will be applied to the loss his family and friends had now sustained. The funeral service was read by one of those friends, the Rev. T. J. Judkin, whose tears fell fast on the book as he stood by the tomb."

Mahmood the Ghazavide.[4 - One of the greatest and most memorable of the Turkish princes was Mahmood the Ghaznavide, who reigned in the eastern provinces of Persia, A.D. 997-1028. His father, Sebactagi, arose from the condition of a slave to the command of the city and province of Ghazna. In the fall of the dynasty of the Sammanides, the fortune of Mahmood was confirmed. For him the title of sultan (signifying lord and master) was first invented, and his kingdom was enlarged from Transoxiana to the neighbourhood of Ispahan, from the shores of the Caspian to the mouth of the Indus. The prowess and magnificence of Mahmood, his twelve expeditions into Hindostan, and the holy wars he waged against the idol-worship of that country, in one of which he destroyed an image of peculiar sanctity at Diu or Du in Guzerat, and carried off the gates of Somnauth, (so recently, once more, become a trophy of triumph and defeat,) the vast treasures amassed in his campaigns, and the extent and greatness of the Ghaznavide empire, have always been favourite subjects with Eastern historians. The instance of his justice recorded in the verses, is given by Gibbon, from whose history this note is chiefly taken.Ghazna, from being the emporium of India, and the metropolis of a vast dominion, had almost shrunk from the eye of the geographer, until, under the modified appellation of Ghizni, it again emerged into importance in our Affghan war. A curious crowd of associations is suggested by the fact, that the town which gave its name to a dynasty that shook the successors of Mahomet on their thrones, now confers the dignity of Baron on a native of one of the obscurest villages in Ireland – Lord Keane of Ghizni, and of Cappoquin in the county of Waterford.]

By B. Simmons

I

Hail to the morn that reigneth
Where Kaff,[5 - Kaff of late years is considered to have been more a creation of Eastern mythology, than a genuine incontestable mountain. Its position is supposed to be at the highest point of the great Hindoo-Kosh range. Such was its astonishing altitude, that, says D'Herbelot, "vous trouvez souvent dans leurs anciens livres, pour exprimer le lever du soleil, cette façon de parler, aussitôt que cet astre parût sur la cime du Mont Cáf, le monde fut éclairé de sa lumière: de même pour comprendre toute l'etendue de la terre et de l'eau, ils disent Depuis Cáf à Cáf– c'est à dire, d'une de ses extremités à l'autre."] since time began
Allah's eternal sentinel,
Keeps watch upon the Sun;
And through the realms of heaven,
From his cold dwelling-place,
Beholds the bright Archangel
For ever face to face!
Kaff smiles – the loosen'd morning
On Asia is unfurl'd!
Sind[6 - The name of Sind, Attok, or Indus, is applied indifferently to the mighty stream that forms the western boundary of Hindostan.] flashes free, and rolls a sea
Of amber down the world!
Lo! how the purple thickets
And arbours of Cashmere
Beneath the kindling lustre
A rosier radiance wear!
Hail to the mighty Morning
That, odorously cool,
Comes down the nutmeg-gardens
And plum-groves of Cabool!
Cold 'mid the dawn, o'er Ghazna,
The rivall'd moon retires;
As on the city spread below,
Far through the sky's transparent glow,
A hundred gold-roof'd temples throw
Their crescents' sparkling fires.

II

The Imam's cry in Ghazna
Has died upon the air,
And day's great life begins to throng
Each stately street and square.
The loose-robed turban'd merchants —
The fur-clad mountaineers —
The chiefs' brocaded elephants —
The Kurdmans' group of spears —
Grave men beneath the awning
Of every gay bazar
Ranging their costly merchandise,
Shawl, gem, and glittering jar —
The outworn files arriving
Of some vast Caravan,
With dusky men and camels tall,
Before the crowded khan; —
All that fills kingly cities
With traffic, wealth, and din,
Resounds, imperial Ghazna,
This morn thy walls within.

III

All praise to the First Sultan,
Mahmood the Ghaznavide!
His fame be like the firmament,
As moveless and as wide!
Mahmood, who saw before him
Pagoda'd Bramah fall —
Twelve times he swept the orient earth
From Bagdad to Bengal;
Twelve times amid their Steppes of ice
He smote each Golden Horde[7 - The tribes of savage warriors inhabiting the Kipchak, or table-land of Tartary, have been distinguished by the name of the Golden Hordes. There is a magnificent lyric on their Battle-charge, by Dr Croly, in the Friendship's Offering for 1834.]—
Round the South's sultry isles twelve times
His ships resistless pour'd;
Mahmood – his tomb in Ghazna
For many an age shall show
The mighty mace with which he laid
Du's hideous idol low.
True soldier of the Prophet!
From Somnauth's gorgeous shrine
He tore the gates of sandal-wood,
The carven gates divine;
He hung them vow'd, in Ghazna,
To Allah's blest renown —
Trophies of endless sway they tower,
For unto earth's remotest hour
What boastful man may hope the power
Again to take them down?