In private, Grimaldi was a general favourite, not only among his equals, but with his superiors and inferiors. That he was a man of the kindest heart, and the most child-like simplicity, nobody who has read the foregoing pages can for a moment doubt. He was innocent of all caution in worldly matters, and has been known, on the seller's warranty,[98] to give forty guineas for a gold watch, which, as it subsequently turned out, would have been dear at ten. Among many acts of private goodness may be mentioned--although he shrunk from the slightest allusion to the story--his release of a brother actor from Lancaster jail, under circumstances which showed a pure benevolence of heart, and delicacy of feeling, that would have done honour to a prince. With far more temptations to indulge in the pleasures of the table than most men encounter, Grimaldi was through life remarkably temperate, never having been seen, indeed, in a state of intoxication. But he was a great eater, as most pantomime actors are, who enjoy good health, and abstain from dram-drinking; and it was supposed, at the time of his decease, that an attack of indigestion consequent upon too hearty a supper at too late an hour materially hastened, if it did not actually occasion, his death. Many readers will ridicule the idea of a clown being a man of great feeling and sensibility: Grimaldi was so, notwithstanding, and suffered most severely from the afflictions which befel him. The loss of his wife, to whom he had been long and devotedly attached, preyed upon his mind to a greater or less extent for many years. The reckless career and dreadful death of his only son bowed him down with grief. The young man's notorious conduct had embittered the best portion of his existence: and his sudden death, when a better course seemed opening before him, had well-nigh terminated his unhappy father's days. But although, in the weakened state in which he then was, the sad event preying alike upon his mind and body, changed Grimaldi's appearance in a few weeks to that of a shrunken, imbecile old man; and although, when he had in some measure recovered from this heavy blow, he had to mourn the loss of his wife, with whom he had lived happily for more than thirty years, he survived the trials to which he had been exposed, and lived to recover his cheerfulness and peace. Deprived of all power of motion; doomed to bear, at a time of life when he might reasonably have looked forward to many years of activity and exertion, the worst bodily evils of the most helpless old age; condemned to drag out the remainder of his days in a solitary chamber, when all those who make up the sum of home were cold in death, his existence would seem to have been a weary one indeed; but he was patient and resigned under all these trials, and in time grew contented, and even happy.