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.

[Illustration: 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