In February of 1887 Philip Bourke Marston died. He bequeathed to Mrs. Moulton his books and manuscripts, and many autographs of great interest and value. Among them was the first page of the original manuscript of the first great chorus in "Atalanta in Calydon" corrected in Swinburne's own hand. Marston requested that she should be his literary executor. Speaking of this work some years later, Mrs. Moulton said:

"When I first knew the Marstons they were a group of five,—dear old Dr. Marston, his son, Philip Bourke Marston, his unmarried daughter Cecily, his married daughter Mrs. Arthur O'Shaughnessy, and her husband. I edited a volume of selections by O'Shaughnessy; and I was named by Mr. Marston, in his will, as his literary executor. I brought out after his death a volume whose contents had not been hitherto included in any book, and which I called 'A Last Harvest.' Then I put all his flower-poems together (as he had long wished to do) in a volume by themselves, which was entitled 'Garden Secrets.' Finally I have brought out a collected edition of his poems, including the three volumes published before his death, and the ones I had compiled after he died.

"Ah, you may well call his life tragic. He was only three years old when he lost his sight. He was educated orally, but his knowledge of literature was a marvel. The poets of the past were his familiar friends, and he could repeat Swinburne's poems by the hour. To recite Rossetti's 'House of Life' was one of the amusements of his solitary days. But he longed, beyond all things, to be constantly in touch with the world—to know what every year, every month, was producing. 'Can you fancy what it is,' he would say to me sometimes, 'to be just walled in with books that you are dying to read, and to have them as much beyond your reach as if they were the other side of the world?' Yet he had, despite his sad fate, the gayest humor—the most naturally cheerful temperament; he could be so merry with his friends—so happy 'when there was anything to be happy about.' Of his work 'Garden Secrets' is uniquely charming. Rossetti once wrote him, in a letter of which I am the fortunate possessor, that he had been reading these 'Garden Secrets,' the evening before, to William Bell Scott, the poet-artist, and adds, 'Scott fully agreed with me that they were worthy of Shakespeare, in his subtlest lyrical moods.' Some of the best critics in London declared that the author of 'Song-Tide' (Marston's first volume) should, by virtue of this one book, take equal rank with Swinburne, Morris, and Rossetti. Certainly his subsequent volumes fully sustained the promise of this first one, and I feel that when Philip Bourke Marston died, at the age of thirty-seven, on the fourteenth of February, 1887, England lost one of her noblest and subtlest poets—one whose future promise it were hard to overrate. Sometimes I think I care most for some of his sonnets; then the subtle beauty of his lyrics upbraids me,—and I hardly know which to choose. Take him all in all, he seems to me a poet whom future generations will recognize and remember."

Regarding the death of Mr. Marston, Mr. Whittier wrote to the friend who had brought so much brightness into the life of the blind poet:

Mr. Whittier to Mrs. Moulton

Centre Harbor, N.H., 7th month, 1887.

My dear Friend, Louise Chandler Moulton: It was very kind in thee to send thy admirable little book and most welcome letter. We have read thy wise and charming essay up here among the hills, and under the shadow of the pines, with hearty approval. It was needed, and will do a great deal of good to young people, in the matter of manners and morals.

It seems a very long time since I had the great pleasure of seeing thee, or of hearing directly from thee. I meant to have been in Boston in the early spring, and looked forward to the satisfaction of meeting thee, but I was too ill to leave home, and I felt a real pang of regret when I learned of thy departure. I am now much better, but although I cannot say with the Scotch poet that

"the years hang o'er my back
And bend me like a muckle pack,"