After an illness in 1891 he never had quite the same physical vigour, though he continued to employ himself fully for some years in a way which would tax the energy of many robust men. In 1895 the vital energy was failing, and he was content to relax his labours. In August 1896 he was suffering from congestion of the lungs, and in October he died peacefully at Hammersmith, attended by the loving care of his wife and his oldest friends. The funeral at Kelmscott was remarkable for simplicity and beauty, the coffin being borne along the country road in a farm wagon strewn with leaves; and he lies in the quiet churchyard amid the meadows and orchards which he loved so well.

Among the prophets and poets who took up their parable against the worship of material wealth and comfort, he will always have a foremost place. The thunder of Carlyle, the fiery eloquence of Ruskin, the delicate irony of Matthew Arnold, will find a responsive echo in the heart of one reader or another; will expose the false standards of life set up in a materialistic age and educate them in the pursuit of what is true, what is beautiful, and what is reasonable. But to men who work with their hands there must always be something specially inspiring in the life and example of one who was a handicraftsman and so much beside. And Morris was not content to denounce and to despair. He enjoyed what was good in the past and the present, and he preached in a hopeful spirit a gospel of yet better things for the future. He was an artist in living. Amid all the diversity of his work there was an essential unity in his life. The men with whom he worked were the friends whom he welcomed in his leisure; the crafts by which he made his wealth were the pastimes over which he talked and thought in his home; his dreams for the future were framed in the setting of the mediaeval romances which he loved from his earliest days. Though he lived often in an atmosphere of conflict, and often knew failure, he has left us an example which may help to fill the emptiness and to kindle the lukewarmness of many an unquiet heart, and may reconcile the discords that mar the lives of too many of his countrymen in this age of transition and of doubt.

john richard green
From a drawing by Frederick Sandys

JOHN RICHARD GREEN

1837-83

1837. Born at Oxford, December 12.
1845-52. Magdalen College School, Oxford.
1852-4. With a private tutor.
1855-9. Jesus College, Oxford.
1861-3. Curate at Goswell Road, E.C.
1863-4. Curate at Hoxton.
1864-9. Mission Curate and Rector of St. Philip's, Stepney.
1869. Abandons parochial work. Librarian at Lambeth Palace.
1867-73. Contributor to Saturday Review.
1874. Short History of the English People published.
1877. Marries Miss Alice Stopford.
1877-80. Four volumes of larger History of the English People published.
1880-1. Winter in Egypt.
1882. January, Making of England published.
1883. January, Conquest of England finished (published posthumously). Last illness. Death, March 7.