On October 28, 1844, Her Majesty the Queen visited the city to open the Royal Exchange. Mr. Barham, his wife and daughters, had accepted an invitation from a friend to witness the procession, and, standing at an open window, he remarked that the cutting east wind then blowing would cost many of the spectators their lives. The speech seemed in his own case prophetic. In the course of the evening he was attacked by a violent fit of coughing, and his old friend and schoolfellow Dr. Roberts was called in. The poet rallied from this attack, but fresh ones succeeded it, and at length his articulation became impeded. He was advised to leave London for Bath, rest being absolutely necessary; but a meeting of the Archæological Association induced him to hurry back to town to attend it, and then other business pressed on him, and another attack followed. His son relates a little incident that shows Barham had begun to realize the serious nature of his illness. He had been for many years on the Committee of the Garrick Club, and by the rules of the society the names of the Committee were placed in a ballot box and six withdrawn, by chance, on St. George's day, which was the anniversary of the birth and death of Shakspeare. The first name drawn out that year was Barham's; but he was unanimously re-elected. When he was told of the circumstance, he said: It had been well to have accepted the omen, and filled up his place at once. In fact he never entered the Club again. Mrs. Barham had also been ill; therefore he and she went together in the following May to Clifton, for change of air and rest; but unhappily they had only been a few hours in their lodgings before Mrs. Barham was taken dangerously ill, and unable to attend to her husband. Their eldest daughter soon joined them, and a slight amendment enabled her to bring them back to their home; but the expedition proved to have been a fatal one. Here Dr. Roberts, and the great surgeon Coulson, did all that was possible to save the life of the beloved poet. But they knew that their skill was vain, and their patient readily divined the truth that he was dying. He learned the certainty of the approaching end with perfect calmness and cheerfulness, only disturbed by anxiety about his wife, who was still extremely ill. He arranged his worldly affairs; received the Holy Communion with his household; and waited for the certain result of his malady with patience and resolution. His last lines, "As I lay a-thinking," referring chiefly to the death of his youngest son, were written, his son tells us, just before he left Clifton; he now desired that they might be sent to Mr. Bentley for publication. He died on the 17th of June 1845. His life as a clergyman had been most useful and beneficial to his parishioners; his poems have cheered many a weary spirit, and been a source of much innocent household mirth.