On Friday, 27th December, Yule received a telegram from Paris, announcing his nomination that day as Corresponding Member of the Institute of France (Academie des Inscriptions), one of the few distinctions of any kind of which it can still be said that it has at no time lost any of its exalted dignity.

An honour of a different kind that came about the same time, and was scarcely less prized by him, was a very beautiful letter of farewell and benediction from Miss Florence Nightingale,[75] which he kept under his pillow and read many times.  On the 28th, he dictated to the present writer his acknowledgment, also by telegraph, of the great honour done him by the Institute.  The message was in the following words:  “Reddo gratias, Illustrissimi Domini, ob honores tanto nimios quanto immeritos!  Mihi robora deficiunt, vita collabitur, accipiatis voluntatem pro facto.  Cum corde pleno et gratissimo moriturus vos, Illustrissimi Domini, saluto.  YULE.”

Sunday, 29th December, was a day of the most dense black fog, and he felt its oppression, but was much cheered by a visit from his ever faithful friend, Collinson, who, with his usual unselfishness, came to him that day at very great personal inconvenience.

On Monday, 30th December, the day was clearer, and Henry Yule awoke much refreshed, and in a peculiarly happy and even cheerful frame of mind.  He said he felt so comfortable.  He spoke of his intended book, and bade his daughter write about the inevitable delay to his publisher:  “Go and write to John Murray,” were indeed his last words to her.  During the morning he saw some friends and relations, but as noon approached his strength flagged, and after a period of unconsciousness, he passed peacefully away in the presence of his daughter and of an old friend, who had come from Edinburgh to see him, but arrived too late for recognition.  Almost at the same time that Yule fell asleep, his “stately message,"[76] was being read under the great Dome in Paris.  Some two hours after Yule had passed away, F.-M.  Lord Napier of Magdala, called on an errand of friendship, and at his desire was admitted to see the last of his early friend.  When Lord Napier came out, he said to the present writer, in his own reflective way:  “He looks as if he had just settled to some great work.”  With these suggestive words of the great soldier, who was so soon, alas, to follow his old friend to the work of another world, this sketch may fitly close.

* * * * *

The following excellent verses (of unknown authorship) on Yule’s death, subsequently appeared in the Academy:[77]

  “‘Moriturus vos saluto’
  Breathes his last the dying scholar—­
  Tireless student, brilliant writer;
  He ‘salutes his age’ and journeys
  To the Undiscovered Country. 
  There await him with warm welcome
  All the heroes of old Story—­
  The Venetians, the Ca Polo,
  Marco, Nicolo, Maffeo,