His unwonted ease however was not to the taste of the active soldier. He had ever been in turmoil, and could not exist without it. What says the old naval captain in the French song?— “A présent, que je suis en retraite, Je me vois forcé de végéter; Et bien souvent tout seul je tempête De n’avoir jamais à tempêter. Un vieux compagnon de lame, Aussi folâtre que moi, Me dit de prendre une femme; Eh! mais pas si mal, ma foi! Car j’aime le tapage— Et je suis tapageur.” Just so with honest John. He had passed the best years of his life in war, and he could not do without at least a little healthy skirmishing; and he provided that which he had hitherto lacked, by taking a wife, and that wife a dark-eyed, lightning-tongued Italian. The lady, Bianca Sforza, and domestic controversy, kept him from “growing pursy,” like Sir Giles; and there was ever a very hot fire at the hearth of the tanner’s gallant son of Sible Hedingham. In his later days he did what retired veterans are apt to do, and are wise in their aptness. He took to meditation, and, not to attending Bible societies, as hearty old admirals do now, but to not less praiseworthy service, a sample of which may be seen in his foundation of the English hospital at Rome for the reception of poor travellers. The funds, I believe, still exist, though they are diverted from the purpose contemplated by the founder. It would serve, he thought, to balance much of a heavy account with Heaven; and he was comforted in that direction by those most skilful drawers of wills, the Romish priests. Having settled this matter, and feeling, like the Irish gentleman on his death-bed, that he had nothing to lay to his charge, for he had never denied himself anything, he calmly died in the Strada Pulverosa, in Florence, in the year 1393. He was buried with a magnificence that perhaps has never been surpassed. The very details of it dazzle the mental vision; and I will therefore leave my readers to conceive of it under the shadow of imagination. He was finally laid to rest in the Church of the _Reparata_, beneath a tomb in which there is metal enough to make thimbles for all the tailors in Christendom. There is a cenotaph in honour of the hero in Sible Hedingham church. It is a profusely ornamented memorial, with the pretty conceit of the sort so dear to our forefathers, of _hawks_ flying through a _wood_. It is due to him in whose honour it was erected, to say that if friends declared his almost superhuman courage and ability, hostile writers conceded with alacrity to the eulogy flung upon him in showers.