While engaged in the composition of _Philip II._, Prescott had undertaken to write a continuation of Robertson's _History of Charles V._ He had been asked to prepare an entirely new work upon the reign of that monarch, but this seemed too arduous a task. He therefore rewrote the conclusion of Robertson's book--a matter of some hundred and eighty pages. This he began in the spring of 1855, and finished it during the following year. It was published on December 8, 1856, on which day he wrote to Ticknor: "My _Charles the Fifth_, or rather Robertson's with my Continuation, made his bow to-day, like a strapping giant with a little urchin holding on to the tail of his coat."[23] At about the same time Prescott prepared a brief memoir of Mr. Abbott Lawrence, the father of his daughter's husband. This was printed for private distribution. During the year which followed, Prescott's health began steadily to fail. He suffered from violent pains in the head; so severe as to rob him of sleep and to make work of any kind impossible. He still, however, enjoyed intervals when he could laugh and jest in his old careless way, and even at times indulge in the pleasant little dinners which he loved to share with his most intimate friends. On February 4th, however, while walking in the street, he was stricken down by an apoplectic seizure, which solved the mystery of his severe headaches. When he recovered consciousness his first words were, "My poor wife! I am so sorry for you that this has come upon you so soon." The attack was a warning rather than an instant summons. After a few days he was once more himself, except that his enunciation never again became absolutely clear. Serious work, of course, was out of the question. He listened to a good deal of reading, chiefly fiction. He was put upon a very careful regimen in the matter of diet, and wrote, with a touch of rueful amusement, of the vegetarian meals to which he was restricted: "I have been obliged to exchange my carnivorous propensities for those of a more innocent and primitive nature, picking up my fare as our good parents did before the Fall." Improving somewhat, he completed the third volume of _Philip II._; not so fully as he had intended, but mainly putting together so much of it as had already been prepared. The book was printed in April, 1858, and the supervision of the proof-sheets afforded him some occupation, as did also the making of a few additional notes for a new edition of the _Conquest of Mexico_. The summer of 1858 he spent in Pepperell, returning to Boston in October, in the hope of once more taking up his studies. He did, in fact, linger wistfully over his books and manuscripts, but accomplished very little; for, soon after the New Year, there came the end of all his labours. On January 27th, his health was apparently in a satisfactory condition. He listened to his secretary, Mr. Kirk, read from one of Sala's books of travel, and, in