The rhapsody was, I believe, never written, but he continued to like and practise the game till his death, which indeed is, in my mind, rather painfully connected with it. My last visit to Offley was in the short Easter vacation of this year, and I thought I had never seen him better, or in more full vigour of body and mind. On the 30th of March he mounted me, and I rode with him and two of his boys to a meet near Offley. We had a run early in the day, and got home to a late lunch, after which he went out into his plantations and worked till dark. Indeed, when I left the same evening by the mail train for the north, I beguiled my journey by thinking that the whole kingdom might be searched in vain to find a finer specimen of a man. On that day four weeks I received a telegram from Hoylake to say that he was lying there very dangerously ill. He had gone on there, after leaving his boys at Rugby, to take part in the golf tournament. He went down with a bad cold, but paid no attention to it, and went round the links with some friends on the first evening. The next day he became much worse, and was obliged to take to his bed, from which he never got up. The cold had settled on his lungs, and violent inflammation was set up. His wife and children were summoned at once, and his mother and sister and myself two days later. When I arrived, the lower part of the lungs had suppurated, and the medical man gave very slight hopes of his recovery. He could only speak with exceeding difficulty, but retained his strength, and the grip of his hand was as strong as ever. He met death with the same courage as he had shown throughout life, giving me a few clear instructions for a codicil to his will, while his youngest boy lay with his head on his shoulder, crying bitterly, and almost with his last breath regretting the trouble he was giving his nurse. On the afternoon of May 1st he received the Sacrament with all of us, and at four on the morning of the 2nd passed away, leaving behind him, I am proud to think, no braver or better man. But you shall have better testimony than mine on this point. Out of the many letters to the same purpose which I received, and two of which have found a place in the earlier part of this memoir, I select an extract from one written by Bishop MacDougal, who, thirty years ago, had rowed behind him in the University boat.