But his sport and his suffering were now coming to a close. The
increased debility under which he felt himself sinking, induced him
again to try the influence of a more genial sky. Early in 1770, he set
out with his wife for Italy; and after staying a short time at Leghorn,
settled himself at Monte Nero, near that port. In a letter to Caleb
Whitefoord, dated the 18th of May, he describes himself rusticated on
the side of a mountain that overlooks the sea, a most romantic and
salutary situation. One other flash broke from him in this retirement.
His novel, called the Expedition of Humphry Clinker, which he sent to
England to be printed in 1770, though abounding in portraitures of
exquisite drollery, and in situations highly comical, has not the full
zest and flavour of his earlier works. The story does not move on with
the same impetuosity. The characters have more the appearance of being
broad caricatures from real life, than the creatures of a rich and
teeming invention. They seem rather the representation of individuals
grotesquely designed and extravagantly coloured, than of classes of men.

His bodily strength now giving way by degrees, while that of his mind
remained unimpaired, he expired at his residence near Leghorn, on the
21st of October, 1771, in the 51st year of his age.

His mother died a little before him. His widow lived twelve years
longer, which she passed at Leghorn in a state of unhappy dependence on
the bounty of the merchants at that place, and of a few friends in
England. Out of her slender means she contrived to erect a monument to
her deceased husband, on which the following inscription from the pen of
his friend Armstrong was inscribed:

Hic ossa conduntur