presentiment that he should see it no more; but he followed the
proffered advice, and in the spring of the year was established in
Berkeley Square. His mind was still clear. He seems to have cherished to
the last a concern for that literary fame which he affected to despise.
'Literature has,' he said, 'many revolutions; if an author could rise
from the dead, after a hundred years, what would be his surprise at the
adventures of his works! I often say, perhaps my books may be published
in Paternoster Row!' He would indeed have been astonished at the vast
circulation of his Letters, and the popularity which has carried them
into every aristocratic family in England. It is remarkable that among
the middle and lower classes they are far less known, for he was
essentially the chronicler, as well as the wit and beau, of St. James's,
of Windsor, and Richmond.

At last he declared that he should 'be content with a sprig of rosemary'
thrown on him when the parson of the parish commits his 'dust to dust.'
The end of his now suffering existence was near at hand. Irritability,
one of the unpitied accompaniments of weakness, seemed to compete with
the gathering clouds of mental darkness as the last hour drew on. At
intervals there were flashes of a wit that appeared at that solemn
moment hardly natural, and that must have startled rather than pleased,
the watchful friends around him. He became unjust in his fretfulness,
and those who loved him most could not wish to see him survive the wreck
of his intellect. Fever came on, and he died on the 2nd of March, 1797.

He had collected his letters from his friends: these epistles were
deposited in two boxes, one marked with an A., the other with a B. The
chest A. was not to be opened until the eldest son of his grandniece,
Lady Laura, should attain the age of twenty-five. The chest was found to
contain memoirs, and bundles of letters ready for publication.