HILLS : E. G. VARENNE, OF KELVEDON, BOTANIST. 299
patients—visits paid (one may assume) more in a friendly way
than in his professional capacity.
Varenne died at Kelvedon on 22 April 1887, in the seventy-
seventh year of his age. He lies buried in the church-yard,
close to the grave of his first wife, a little north-west from the
church tower. His funeral brought together nearly all the
adult inhabitants of the town, the size of the gathering, which
quite filled the church, testifying to the great respect in which
he was held by his neighbours.
My uncle. Mr. Thomas Butler, formerly of Ewell Hall,
Kelvedon, but now living at Leicester, who knew Varenne
extremely well, sends me a reminiscence connected with his
death. Feeling his end approaching, he gave instructions that
he was to be borne to his grave low (meaning not shoulder-high,
as the custom is), declaring that, as he had lived all his life
among the people, and had loved them, and had never set himself
above them, so at the last he desired to remain on an equality
with them and not to be elevated above them. Therefore,
he was carried by his neighbours to his last resting place in
the humble manner he desired.
By his will, made 5 June 1879 and proved at Ipswich on
4 July 1887, Varenne left everything to his widow, Amynta,
whom he appointed sole executrix. His estate, wholly personal,
was sworn at a trifle less than six thousand pounds.
All testimony obtainable at Kelvedon goes to prove
the affection and respect in which he was held by his
neighbours, and this in spite of the brusqueness of his manner,
his so-called "infidelity," and the terror inspired by the ferocity
of his big black horse. My uncle, who has written me his recol-
lections of Varenne, refers to him as "that dear old man" and
adds :—"I think that no one in Kelvedon or its neighbourhood
was ever more universally loved and respected than E. G.
Varenne. . . . There never lived a man of more kindly
nature." The Rev. E. F. Hay, the present Vicar of Kelvedon,
writing to me recently, spoke of him as "a remarkable man in
his generation."
Of photographic portraits of Varenne, there exist a surprising
number, considering the comparatively early period in the
development of the art of photography at which he lived. Most
of them were probably taken in the "Sixties" of last century.