When assured that the progress of his fatal malady (cancer) precluded
all hopes of life, Gainsborough desired to be buried in Kew churchyard,
and that his name only should be cut on his gravestone. He sent for Sir
Joshua Reynolds, and was reconciled to him: then exclaiming, “We are all
going to heaven, and Vandyke is of the company,” he immediately expired,
in the sixty-first year of his age. Sheridan and Sir Joshua followed him
to his grave.