In September 1882 the Dean of Windsor died, and in his
death Mr. Gladstone (M36) suffered a heavy blow. To the end he always
spoke of Dr. Wellesley's friendship, and the value of his sagacity and
honest service, with a warmth by this time given to few.

_Death of the Dean of Windsor._

_To Lord Granville, Sept. 18, 1882._--My belief is that he has been
cognizant of every crown appointment in the church for nearly a
quarter of a century, and that the whole of his influence has been
exercised with a deep insight and a large heart for the best
interests of the crown and the church. If their character during
this period has been in the main more satisfactory to the general
mind of the country than at some former periods, it has been in no
small degree owing to him.

It has been my duty to recommend I think for fully forty of the
higher appointments, including twelve which were episcopal. I
rejoice to say that every one of them has had his approval. But I
do not scruple to own that he has been in no small degree a help
and guide to me; and as to the Queen, whose heart I am sure is at
this moment bleeding, I do not believe she can possibly fill his
place as a friendly adviser either in ecclesiastical or other
matters.

_To the Duchess of Wellington, Sept. 24._--He might, if he had
chosen, have been on his way to the Archbishopric of Canterbury.
Ten or eleven years ago, when the present primate was not expected
to recover, the question of the succession was considered, and I
had her Majesty's consent to the idea I have now mentioned. But,
governed I think by his great modesty, he at once refused.

_To Mrs. Wellesley, Nov. 19, 1882._--I have remained silent, at
least to you, on a subject which for no day has been absent from
my thoughts, because I felt that I could add nothing to your
consolations and could take away nothing from your grief under
your great calamity. But the time has perhaps come when I may
record my sense of a loss of which even a small share is so large.
The recollections of nearly sixty years are upon my mind, and
through all that period I have felt more and more the force and
value of your husband's simple and noble character. No less have I
entertained an ever-growing sense of his great sagacity and the
singularly true and just balance of his mind. We owe much inde