Early in March, 1842, he had an attack of inflammation of the lungs, and, on his recovery, we went down to Brighton for some weeks. We afterwards made a tour through Somerset, Devonshire, and part of Cornwall; and, on our return to Exeter, Mr. Loudon went to Barnstaple, in the neighbourhood of which he was about to lay out some grounds for Lord Clinton, sending Agnes and myself back to London. When he returned home, I noticed that he had a slight cough; but, as it was trifling, it did not make me uneasy, particularly as his spirits were good. he now finished his Suburban Horticulturist, which had been begun two years before, but had been stopped on account of his illness in Scotland; and this work was published by Mr. Smith of Fleet Street, all his other works, from the appearance of the Encyclopedia of Gardening, having been published by Messrs. Longman.

Book on cemeteries

In 1843 his time was chiefly occupied by his work on Cemeteries, with which he took extraordinary pains, and which was very expensive from the number of the engravings. In August we were invited to Derby to pay another visit to Mr. Strutt, but he was too ill to go, and the doctors pronounced his complaint to be a second attack of inflammation of the lungs.

Previously to Mr. Loudon's illness, I had agreed to write a little book on the Isle of Wight, and to visit it for this purpose. This arrangement I now wished to give up; but his medical men advised us to go, as they thought the air of the Isle of Wight might re-establish his health. Strange to say, up to the time of our leaving home I lied no idea that his illness was at all dangerous; but the fact was, I had seen him recover so often when every one thought he was dying, that I had become accustomed to place little reliance on what was said of his attacks by others. When we reached the isle of Wight, however, I was struck with a degree of listlessness and want of energy about him that I had never seen before. He became rapidly worse while we were in the island, and most eager to leave it. On our arrival at Southampton, where he was laying out a cemetery, he felt better; and, taking a lodging there, he sent Agnes and myself back to town. In a fortnight I went down to see him, and I shall never forget the change I found in him. The first look told me he was dying. His energy of mind had now returned. He not only attended to the laying out of the cemetery at Southampton; but during his stay in that town he corrected the proofs of the second Supplement to his Encyclopedia of Agriculture, and their went alone to Bath, in spite of my earnest entreaties to be permitted to accompany him. At Bath he inspected the ground for another cemetery, and also the grounds of a gentleman named Pinder, though he was obliged to be wheeled about in a Bath chair. He then went, still alone, to Kiddington, the seat of Mortimer Ricardo, Esq., near Enstone, in Oxfordshire; where he was also obliged to be wheeled round the grounds in a chair. When about to leave Kiddington he appeared so ill, that Mr. Ricardo offered to send a servant with him to town.