om he
was sure his Grace was not well, and advised him to be very
attentive to him. Many people were struck with the odd way he sat
on his horse. As he went home this got more apparent. When not
far from Apsley House he dropped the reins out of his left hand,
but took them up with the other, and when he got to his own door,
he found he could not get off his horse. He felt his hand
chilled. This has been the first symptom in each of his three
attacks. He was helped off. Hume was sent for, came directly, and
got him to bed. He had a succession of violent convulsions, was
speechless, and his arm was affected. They thought he would have
died in the night. The doctors came, physicked but did not bleed
him, and yesterday morning he was better. He has continued to
mend ever since, but it was a desperate blow, and offers a sad
prospect. He will probably again rally, but these things must be
always impending, and his mind must be affected, and will be
thought to be so. Lyndhurst asked me last night what could be
done. He said, 'The Duke ought now to retire from public life,
and not expose himself to any appearance of an enfeebled
understanding. Above all things to be deprecated is, that he
should ever become a dotard like Marlborough, or a driveller like
Swift.' 'How,' he said, 'would Aberdeen do?' He owned that nobody
could replace the Duke or keep the party in order, and he said
that the consequence would be it would break up, that '_there are
many who would be glad of an opportunity to leave it_.' This I
told him I did not believe, but it certainly is impossible to
calculate on the consequences of the Duke's death, or, what is
nearly the same thing, his withdrawal from the lead of the party.

[26] [The Duke was seventy when he had this seizure,
supposed at the time to be fatal, at least to his
faculties. But he lived for twelve years after it and
continued during the greater part of that time to
render great public services and to lead the Tory
party.]

February 16th, 1840 {p.268}

The Duke of Wellington, although his life was in such danger on
Thursday night, that the chances were he would die, has thrown
off his attack in a marvellous manner, and is now rapidly
approaching to convalescence, all dangerous symptoms subsiding.
The doctors, both Astley Cooper and Chambers, declare that they
have never seen such an extraordinary power of rallying in
anybody before i