They returned to London together, and for the next three months Grimaldi consulted the most eminent medical men in the hope of recovering some portion of his lost health and strength. During that time he suffered an intensity of anxiety which it is difficult to conceive, as their final decision upon the remotest probability of his recovery was postponed from day to day. All their efforts were in vain, however. Towards the end of October, he received a final intimation that it was useless for him to nourish any hope of recovering the use of his limbs, and that although nature, assisted by great care on his part and the watchfulness of his medical attendants, might certainly alleviate some of his severe pains, his final recovery was next to impossible, and he must make up his mind to relinquish every thought of resuming the exercise of his profession. Among the gentlemen to whose kindness and attention he was greatly indebted in this stage of his trials, were, Sir Astley Cooper, Sir Matthew Tierney, Mr. Abernethy, Dr. Farr, Dr. Temple, Dr. Uwins, Dr. Mitchell, Mr. Thomas and Mr. James Wilson. To all these gentlemen he was personally unknown; but they all attended him gratuitously, and earnestly requested him to apply to them without reserve upon every occasion when it was at all likely that they could be of the slightest assistance. It was with no slight despair that Grimaldi received the announcement that for the rest of his days he was a cripple, possibly the constant inmate of a sick-room, and that he had not even a distant prospect of resuming the occupations to which he had been attached from his cradle, and from which he was enabled up to this time to realize an annual income of fifteen hundred pounds: and all this without any private fortune or resources, with the exception of his shares in Sadler's Wells Theatre, which had hitherto proved a dead loss. For some hours after this opinion of his medical men had been communicated to him, he sat stupified with the heaviness of the calamity, and fell into a state of extreme mental distress, from which it was a long time before he was thoroughly roused. As soon as he could begin to exercise his reason, he recollected that it was a duty he owed his employers to inform them of his inability to retain his situation at Covent Garden, the more especially as it was time they made some arrangements for the ensuing Christmas pantomime. Accordingly he sent a note to the theatre, acquainting them with his melancholy condition, and the impossibility of his fulfilling his articles, (which had only been entered into in the preceding January, and were for three years,) and recommending them to engage without loss of time some other individual to supply his place.