fewer and fewer. His evenings, indeed, were almost always occupied with
arbitrations, consultations, or preparing those pleadings and writing
those opinions which his constant attendance in the Courts prevented his
_then_ disposing of. His friends saw with pain how grievously he was
over-tasking his strength, and earnestly importuned him to give himself
more intervals of relaxation--but in vain. For nearly two years before
his death, his haggard countenance evidenced the direful havoc which he
was making of a constitution never of the strongest. Sir William Follett
and he were both sitting at the bar of the House of Lords, on one of the
latest days of the hearing of Mr. O'Connell's case, each within a yard
or two of me. Two death-doomed beings they looked, each, alas! having
similarly provoked and accelerated his fate. On the same afternoon that
Sir William Follett leaned heavily and feebly on a friend's arm as he
with difficulty retired from the bar, I went home in a cab with Mr.
Smith, who sate by me silent and exhausted, and coughing convulsively. I
repeatedly conjured him to pause, and give his shattered health a chance
of recovery, by retiring for a few months, or even for a year or two,
from the excitement and wasting anxieties and exertions of business; but
he never would listen to me, nor to any of his friends. "It is all very
well," he said to me several times, "to talk of retiring _for a while_;
but what is to become of one's business and connexion in the mean time?
You know it will have melted away for ever." He had, however, been
persuaded to consult a physician of experienced skill in cases of
consumption; who, after having once or twice seen him, sent a private
message to the friend who had prevailed on Mr. Smith to call upon him;
and on that friend's attending the physician, he pronounced the case to
be utterly hopeless; that it might be a matter of months, even; but he
ought to be prepared for the worst, and apprised of his situation. His
friend requested the physician to undertake that duty, assuring him of
his patient's great strength of mind and character: but he declined. Mr.