SIR--I am directed by Viscount Palmerston to inform you that he cannot allow you to quit the Board which this day ceases to exist by the expiration of the Act of Parliament by which it was constituted, without conveying to you the full approbation of her Majesty's Government of the zealous, able, and indefatigable manner in which you have performed the important duties which have belonged to your official situation; and his Lordship desires me to express to you the great regret which he feels, that an adverse decision of the House of Commons as to an arrangement which his Lordship had proposed for the reconstruction of the Board of Health has led to so abrupt a cessation of your employment.--I am, sir, your obedient servant, HENRY FITZROY. Dr SOUTHWOOD SMITH. According to the rules of the service, my grandfather was not entitled to a retiring allowance, because so much of the work he had done had been unpaid. A few years afterwards, however, a Government pension was awarded him in consideration of the services which he had rendered to the country. Footnote 23: In the House of Lords. CHAPTER IX. RETIREMENT FROM PUBLIC LIFE--ST GEORGE'S HILL, WEYBRIDGE, 1854-1860. When his official life came to a close, my grandfather retired to a house on Weybridge Heath, and he met the sudden cessation of his eager public life with the same calm courage with which he had met all the other crises in his career. This house had been built on a beautiful spot as a gathering-place for his much-loved and somewhat scattered family, and the beauty of its position came to be a great comfort to him when he turned his quiet days to the prosecution of literary work in his little study, which, opening on to a sunny terraced walk, overlooked, through vistas of dark-green pines and yellow birch-trees, the miles of blue distance which stretched out southwards to the Surrey and Hampshire hills. Through the kindness of Lord Ellesmere, whose property adjoined, there was a small private gate leading from our own little firwood on to St George's Hill itself; and, in the intervals of his writing, frequent strolls on to its beautiful slopes were a great source of pleasure during that first autumn and in all the ensuing years. The heather banks and wooded dells brought him much joy; for, as always, it was in the presence of nature and in the stillness of the country that he gathered strength. The strain of the last few months had been great, and it was well that the closing of the year brought with it the much-needed rest.