The end came most suddenly and unexpectedly. He had suffered for some time from a cough, which no remedy appeared to touch, but which nevertheless was thought to present no appearance of danger. On the 12th of May, 1860, he had been with Lady Barry to spend the afternoon at the Crystal Palace, and had seemed very calm and cheerful, speaking of the natural dispersion of their children, and of the end of life, in which they should be thrown upon each other, as at its beginning. The evening had been spent as usual, and at the regular time, about eleven o’clock, he had retired to his dressing-room. There he was seized with difficulty of breathing and pain; and, before any of his children could be summoned, almost before it was known that there was imminent danger, all was over. It was found afterwards that the cause of death was a weakness of action both in the lungs and in the heart. Death might have come suddenly at any moment. That he had felt some vague presentiment of it was shown by his having put his affairs in order early in the year. But it is doubtful whether he was conscious of its actual approach. It was a cause of thankfulness for his sake that it came so painlessly, and that, though his children, to their great grief, were absent, his wife was with him to the end. It had been intended by his family that his funeral should be private, conducted in accordance with the privacy and simplicity of his life. But almost immediately the chief members of his profession expressed a wish that his body should be laid in Westminster Abbey, among the “representative men” of the country. The idea was readily taken up, especially in the Institute of British Architects. A deputation from that body waited on the Dean, who willingly accorded the needful permission, and it was settled that his body should be laid in the nave. It was but recently that Literature had been so honoured in the person of Lord Macaulay, and Science in the person of Robert Stephenson. Close by the side of the latter the new grave was opened. The funeral took place on May 22nd (the day before his sixty-fifth birth-day). The family procession, moving from Clapham, was met at Vauxhall Bridge by the carriages containing the members of the Institute and other distinguished persons, and by a large body of workmen engaged in his works at the New Palace and elsewhere, who had requested permission to follow him to the grave. So augmented, it moved on to the Abbey.