Page:The Life of William Morris.djvu/748

ÆT. 63] turn he was induced to consult Sir William Broadbent. The existence of diabetes and other complications was confirmed, but not to a degree which implied immediate danger. There were fluctuations and slight improvements followed by relapses, but on the whole he was now steadily losing ground, and as his weakness increased, losing heart. "I don't feel any better: so weak," is a pathetic note in his diary of work at the end of February: and a journey round his garden at Hammersmith was now sufficient to tire him. The daily progress of the Chaucer was the one thing that kept up his interest. It was now within sight of completion. The last three of the wood-blocks had been brought him on the 21st of March. The Easter holidays in April, "four mouldy Sundays in a mouldy row, the press shut and Chaucer at a standstill," were almost more than he could bear. But his eagerness over the acquisition of fresh manuscripts was unabated. In March he had bought from Mr. W.A.S. Benson a fine folio Testament of the twelfth century, which he discovered, to his great delight, had belonged to the same religious house near Dijon as a Josephus which he had acquired a few months before. Towards the end of April he was roused to great excitement by news of a splendid twelfth-century English Bestiary, containing one hundred and six miniatures, which was offered for sale by Mr. Rosenthal of Munich. He at once began to negotiate for it: as Mr. Rosenthal would not take the risk of sending it on approval, Mr. Cockerell went to Stuttgart, where the book was, with full powers. It turned out to be even finer than had been expected; even the British Museum possessed nothing in Bestiaries equal to it. A contemporary note in the book itself recorded that it had been given in the year 1187 to Worksop Priory, together with