His final task in this world was the preparation of Erasmus for the press.

He had been all his life accustomed to work at his own time, and the strain of living by rule at Oxford had told upon him more than he knew.

Before the end of the summer term in 1894 he left Oxford for Devonshire, worn out and broken down.
"Education," he wrote in his last letter to Skelton, "like so much else in these days, has gone mad, and has turned into a large examination mill." He was so much exhausted that he could not go again to Norway with Lord Ducie,* though with characteristic pluck he half thought of paying another visit to Sir George Grey in New Zealand.

But it was not to be.

During the summer his strength failed, and it became known that the disorder was incurable.