According to the custom in Cuba, with condemned criminals, he was conducted from prison to the Chapel of the Doomed.' He passed thither with singular composure, amidst a great concourse of people, gracefully saluting his numerous acquaintances. The chapel was hung with black cloth, dimly lighted. Placido was seated beside his coffin. Priests in long black robes stood around him, chaunting in sepulchral voices the service of the dead. It is an ordeal under which the stoutest-hearted and most resolute have been found to sink. After enduring it for twenty-four hours, he was led out to execution. Placido came forth calm and undismayed, holding a crucifix in his hand; he recited, in a loud, clear voice, a solemn prayer in verse, which he had composed amidst the horrors of the 'chapel.' It thrilled upon the

hearts of all who heard it.

I am indebted to a

friend for assistance in rendering this remarkable prayer into English verse.

'PRAYER OF PLACIDO.

'God of unbounded love and power eternal !
To Thee I turn in darkness and despair;
Stretch forth thine arm, and from the brow infernal
Of calumny the veil of justice tear!

And from the forehead of my honest fame

Pluck the world's brand of infamy and shame!

O King of kings !-my father's God! who only
Art strong to save, by whom is all controlled,
Who givest the sea its waves, the dark and lonely
Abyss of heaven its light, the north its cold,
The air its currents, the warm sun its beams,
Life to the flowers, and motion to the streams.

All things obey Thee; dying or reviving

As Thou commandest; all, apart from Thee, From Thee alone their life and power deriving,

Sink, and are lost in vast eternity!

Yet doth the void obey Thee; since from nought
This marvellous being by Thy hand was wrought.

O, merciful God!-I cannot shun thy presence,

For, through its veil of flesh, Thy piercing eye
Looketh upon my spirit's unsoiled essence,

As through the pure transparence of the sky.
Let not the oppressor clap his bloody hands,
As o'er my prostrate innocence he stands !

But, if, alas! it seemeth good unto Thee

That I should perish as the guilty dies,

That a cold, mangled corse, my foes should view me
With hateful malice and exulting eyes,

Speak Thou the word, and bid them shed my blood,
Fully in me Thy will be done, O God!'

"On arriving at the fatal spot, he sat down, as ordered, on a bench, with his back to the soldiers. The multitude recollected, that in some affecting lines, written by the conspirator in prison, he had said that it would be useless to seek to kill him by

shooting his body-that his heart must be pierced ere it would cease its throbbings. At the last moment, just as the soldiers were about to fire, he rose up and gazed for an instant around and above him, on the beautiful capital of his native land, and its sail-flecked bay, on the dense crowds about him, the blue mountains in the distance, and the sky glorious with the summer sunshine. Adios mundi!' (Farewell world!) he said calmly, and sat down.

The word was given, and five balls entered his body. Then it was, that amidst the groans and murmurs of the horror-stricken spectators, that he rose up once more, and turned his head to the shuddering soldiers, his face wearing an expression of superhuman courage. 'Will no one pity me?' he said, laying his hand over his heart. ‘Here, fire here '' While he yet spake, two balls entered his heart, and he fell dead. Thus perished the hero-poet of Cuba. He has not fallen heroic death will

in vain. His genius, and his doubtless be regarded by his race as precious legacies. To the great names of L'Ouverture and Petion the coloured man can now add that of Juan Placido."

In biographies like these, our homage to the race transcends our homage to the man. We seize with avidity upon these memorials of the greatness of the African, a greatness not to be trampled

down by years of enslavement or of suffering, perpetually starting up and appealing to the world in vindication of its glory and humanity. Now, in the language of poetry, and more, in the nobler language of heroism, in the deeds of affection and veneration, in the strong voice, in the vehement passions of the human soul, in the sins, the sorrows, the intellect, and the affections, proclaiming the fraternity with the great tribes of recognised humanity.

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CHAPTER IV.

CLASSIFICATIONS OF BIOGRAPHY, II.-DRAMATIC.

THERE is another kind of biography, which may be appropriately called Dramatic. It may be placed in opposition to historic biography, because the individual is the centre of events and actions, and events terminating in himself. His is not like the historic biography; the mine, and fountain of influences, from himself, are perpetually widening, and expanding over the world. He is seldom the originator of stupendous events, and of mighty actions,—yet his life, perhaps, contains to all readers mighty interest. The humble sphere in which he moves, may have precluded the possibility of his diffusing his life over the world, even if he possessed power to do so; and he therefore absorbs into himself all the life about him. There is vivid and intense action of some kind where he is; where