The Queen had a great admiration for Ken’s intellectual and moral reputation, and made him an allowance. But his bodily infirmities increased; he went to the hot wells at Bristol, and afterwards to pay a visit to Mrs. Thynne, near Sherborne, where he had a stroke; and wishing to go to Bath, he set forward, but halted at Longleat, where he died. Surely no one could be better prepared to meet death, which he called his final friend. The day before he breathed his last, he told his friends to look in his portmanteau and they would find his shroud, which he always carried with him, saying it might as soon be wanted, as any other of his habiliments. He was buried, by his own desire, in the nearest parish within his diocese; and there, in Frome churchyard, under the east window of the chancel of St. John’s, a quaint tomb covers the mortal remains of Thomas Ken. Many are the pilgrims who still visit that stone coffin, surmounted by a mitre and pastoral staff. Some years after his death, four volumes of miscellaneous works were published—theological, devotional, secular, in prose and verse. In consequence of the rumours which had been circulated of a leaning towards Roman Catholicism, an extract from his will was made public:—‘I die in the Holy Catholic and Apostolic faith; more particularly, I die in the communion of the Church of England, as it stands distinguished from all Papal and Puritanical denominations, as it adheres to the doctrines of the Cross.’ Professor Keble, in speaking of his forerunner in sacred lyrical composition, pays a graceful tribute to Thomas Ken when he says:—‘We shall scarcely find in all ecclesiastical history a greener spot than the latter years of this courageous and affectionate pastor, persecuted alternately by both parties, and driven from his station in his declining age, yet singing on with unabated cheerfulness to the last.’ From all we hear and read indeed of Ken, it would seem as if he had reached nearer his own ideal than is the lot of most men. In his description of what a poet should be, he says— ‘Prophets and poets were of old Made in the same celestial mould; True poets are a saint-like race, And with the gift receive the grace, Of their own songs the virtue feel, etc. A poet should have heat and light, Of all things a capacious sight, Serenity with rapture joined, Aims noble, eloquence refined, Strong, modest, sweetness to endear, Expressions lively, lofty, clear. Such graces can nowhere be found Except on consecrated ground, Where poets fix on God their thought, By sacred inspiration taught, Where each poetic votary sings In heavenly tones of heavenly things.’ --------------