“If I had perfectly recovered I know not what I should have done with respect to the P. under the auspices of a new and more enlightened government; but my state of health renders the resignation _absolutely_ necessary. To attempt business this year would be to prepare for another attack.” He is pleased with the idea that Sir Robert Peel, who had “no scientific glory to awaken jealousy,” may be his successor; and he resumes:-- “The prosperity of the Royal Society will always be very dear to me, and there is no period of my life to which I look back with more real satisfaction than the six years of labour for the interests of that body. I never _was_, and never could be, unpopular with the active and leading members, as six unanimous elections proved; but because I did not choose the Society to be a tool of Mr. ----’s journal jobs, and resisted the admission of improper members, I had some enemies, who were listened to and encouraged from Lady ----’s chair. I shall not name them, but as Lord Byron has said ‘my curse shall be forgiveness.’” He arrived in London in the first week in October, and towards the end of the month he wrote to his friend Poole that he had consulted all the celebrated men who had written upon or studied the nervous system. “They all have a good opinion of my case, and they all order absolute repose for at least twelve months longer, and will not allow me to resume my scientific duties or labours at present; and they insist upon my leaving London for the next three or four months and advise a residence in the West of England.”