tumult and carnage of a battle. Even in his pastimes he liked the
excitement of danger. Cards, chess, and billiards gave him no pleasure.
The chase was his favourite recreation; and he loved it most when it
was most hazardous. His leaps were sometimes such that his boldest
companions did not like to follow him. He seems even to have thought the
most hardy field sports of England effeminate, and to have pined in the
Great Park of Windsor for the game which he had been used to drive to
bay in the forests of Guelders, wolves, and wild boars, and huge stags
with sixteen antlers. [210]

The audacity of his spirit was the more remarkable because his physical
organization was unusually delicate. From a child he had been weak and
sickly. In the prime of manhood his complaints had been aggravated by
a severe attack of small pox. He was asthmatic and consumptive. His
slender frame was shaken by a constant hoarse cough. He could not sleep
unless his head was propped by several pillows, and could scarcely
draw his breath in any but the purest air. Cruel headaches frequently
tortured him. Exertion soon fatigued him. The physicians constantly kept
up the hopes of his enemies by fixing some date beyond which, if there
were anything certain in medical science, it was impossible that his
broken constitution could hold out. Yet, through a life which was one
long disease, the force of his mind never failed, on any great occasion,
to bear up his suffering and languid body.

He was born with violent passions and quick sensibilities: but the
strength of his emotions was not suspected by the world. From the
multitude his joy and his grief, his affection and his resentment,
were hidden by a phlegmatic serenity, which made him pass for the most
coldblooded of mankind. Those who brought him good news could seldom
detect any sign of pleasure. Those who saw him after a defeat looked in
vain for any trace of vexation. He praised and reprimanded, rewarded and
punished, with the stern tranquillity of a Mohawk chief: but those who
knew him well and saw him near were aware that under all this ice a
fierce fire was constantly burning. It was seldom that anger deprived
him of power over himself. But when he was really enraged the first
outbreak of his passion was terrible. It was indeed scarcely safe to
approach him. On these rare occasions, however, as soon as he regained
his self command, he made such ample reparation to those whom he had
wronged as