I wish to go to Trieste in October, to make the experiments I have long projected on the torpedo. God bless you, my dear John! Your affectionate Friend and Brother, H. DAVY. On June 24 he says: I have used the baths. I have nearly recovered the flexibility of the affected limbs, but not their former strength, and this I can hardly hope to do as long as I am obliged to live so low and to use so much medicine; but I shall go on. Speranza! In November he sent his last paper to the Royal Society. It was on the Torpedo. On December 21 he wrote to his brother: Rome. Perhaps in the spring you could see me in Illyria. I would then show you my kind little nurse, to whom I owe most of the little happiness I have enjoyed since my illness. He had stopped his treatment for four months and had lived rather more freely, but in ‘every respect I have continued extremely temperate.’ On January 30, 1829, he was still at Rome. He said, ‘The palpitation of the heart has increased almost alarmingly, and I do not think I have gained any strength in the weak limbs.’ On February 1 he wrote in his journal, ‘Finished the dialogues fifth and sixth’ (these ended the ‘Consolations in Travel’). ‘Si moro, spero che ho fatto il mio dovere, e che la mia vita non e stata vana ed inutile.’ On February 6 he wrote to his friend Poole from Rome: Would I were better, I would then write to you an agreeable letter from this curious city; but I am here wearing away the winter, a ruin amongst ruins. I write and philosophise a good deal, and have nearly finished a work with a higher aim than the little ‘Salmonia,’ which I shall dedicate to you. It contains the essence of my philosophical opinions and some of my poetical reveries. I sometimes think of the lines of Waller: The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed, Lets in new light through chinks that time has made. I have, notwithstanding my infirmities, attended to scientific objects whenever it was in my power, and I have sent to the Royal Society a paper, which they will publish, on the ‘Peculiar Electricity of the Torpedo,’ which I think bears remotely on the functions of life. I attend a good deal to natural history.