Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/377

 NOTES BY THE WAY.

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��and enthusiasm for the brave gentlemen who cast in their lot with the Stuart kings, melted their plate into money, armed their servants into companies, and gave up their estates and their lives, accepting ungrudgingly penury, exile, and death. Into the very soul of these men Mr. Ebsworth enters, leading, as it were, their lives, warmed by their loves, flushed with their hatreds, inspired by their scorns. The name of ' crop-ear' d Puritan ' is with him a phrase of burning signifi- cance ; the health of King Charles is drunk by him unbonnetted and kneeling, with the resolution of enthusiasm and the fervency of prayer. For the Puritans of to-day, for those who would have no more cakes and ale, would take away from our country the name of Merry England, and substitute sour visages for happy faces, Mr. Ebsworth has unquali- fied contempt. It is, however, an old-world scorn. He is a not un- generous foe. For ' Old Noll,' who ' plays the right card, tho' he holds the wrong suit,' he has an enforced admiration ; and after the restoration of monarchy he calls on Milton, who has fallen on ' evil days ' and ' evil tongues,' and is ' in darkness and with dangers compass' d round,' and shakes him by the hand."

Ebsworth's death took place on Whitsunday, the 7th of June, His death. 1908. The manner of his death was just as he himself would have desired. Seated in his garden at Ashford, Kent, looking to the lovely meadows beyond, so often described in his letters, in the sweet quiet of a Sunday afternoon, conversing with those of his own household, he passed away without a sigh. I had received from him the same morning at Brighton his post card, which always preceded the " proper " letter he would write to me on Sunday evening. On it he wrote :

" I hope you are as happy as I am, although I am lying 'cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd ' in bed, with all that I need of literary treasures heaped around me on the counterpane. . . .1 have newly received, safely packed and in prime condition, direct from the manager of The Times newspaper, the splendid big folio vol. descriptive, with specimens, &c., of ' The Historians' History of the World.' It even surpasses my best expectations. Sitting under the sword of Damocles, as I do, and know it, I decline to use the privilege of the week's loan of the 25 vols. All well here."

Only the previous Sunday I received from him a photograph of the portrait of himself painted by Duncan when he was with Ebsworth at the Glasgow School of Design in 1853. Among later portraits of him is one taken in 1873, at the special request of the then Archbishop of Canterbury, for Mrs. Campbell Tait's own authorized collection of the Canterbury district (Weald of Kent) clergy.

To the last he would marvel at the youth and energy remaining His learning, to him ; his memory never failed him, and his accuracy of quotation was extraordinary. With all his learning there was an entire absence of self-assertion, and in a modest way he was ever willing to convey to others information from his vast stores. His affec-

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