MEMOIR. 



write, until past midnight, sometimes past one, dash- 

 ing now and again at a book upon his shelves to verify 

 some one or other of those quaint and telling bits which 

 are so happily inwoven into his text. One fruit of these 

 labours is this book on Garden-craft. 



But I have detained the reader long enough. All is by 

 no means told, and many friends will miss, I doubt not, 

 with disappointment this or that feature which they knew 

 and loved in him. It cannot be helped. I have written 

 as I could, not as I would, within the narrow limits which 

 rightly bound a preface. 



How the end came, how within fourteen days the hand 

 of God took from our midst the much love, genius, beaut}- 

 which His hand had given us in the person of John and 

 Rose Sedding, a few words only must tell. 



On Easter Monday, March 3Oth, John Sedding 

 spent two hours in London, giving the last sitting 

 for the bust which was being modelled at the 

 desire of the Art Workers' Guild. The rest of the 

 day he was busy in his garden. Next morning he left 

 early for Winsford, in Somersetshire, to look after the 

 restoration of this and some other churches in the neigh- 

 bourhood. Winsford village is ten miles from the nearest 

 railway station Dulverton ; the road follows the beauti- 

 ful valley of the Exe, which rising in the moors, de- 

 scends noisily and rapidly southwards to the sea. The 

 air is strangely chill in the hollow of this woody valley. 

 Further, it was March, and March of this memorable year 

 of 1891. Lines of snow still lay in the ditches, and in 

 white patches on the northern side of hedgerows. Within 

 a fortnight of this time men and cattle had perished in the 

 snow-drifts on the higher ground. 



Was this valley the valley of death for our friend, or 

 were the seeds of death already within him ? I know not. 

 Next morning, Wednesday, he did not feel well enough to 

 get up. His kind hostess, and host, the Vicar of the parish, 



