In the autumn of 1857, after speaking of some of the features of the Sepoy revolt, he said,—­“I don’t believe Christianity can spread far in Asia, unless it will allow men more than one wife,—­which isn’t likely yet out of Utah.  But I believe the old Brahmin ’Touch not and taste not, and I am holier than thou, because I don’t touch and taste,’ may be got rid of.  As for Mahometanism, it is a crystallized monotheism, out of which no vegetation can come.  I doubt its being good even for the Central negro.”

March, 1859.  “Excuse this letter all about my own concerns.  I am pretty busy, and have time for little else:  such is our fate after forty.  My figure 40 stands nearly three months behind me on the roadway, unwept, unhonored, and unsung, an octavum lustrum bound up and laid on the shelf.  ‘So-and-so is dead,’ said a friend to Lord Melbourne of some author.  ‘Dear me, how glad I am!  Now I can bind him up.’”

It was not until 1859 that the translation of Plutarch, begun six years before, was completed and published.  It had involved much wearisome study, and gave proof of patient, exact, and elegant scholarship.  Clough’s life in the Council-Office was exceedingly laborious, and for several years his work was increased by services rendered to Miss Nightingale, a near relative of his wife.  He employed “many hours, both before and after his professional duties were over, to aid her in those reforms of the military administration to which she has devoted the remaining energies of her overtasked life.”  For this work he was the better fitted from having acted, during a period of relief from his regular employment, as Secretary to a Military Commission appointed by Government shortly after the Crimean War to examine and report upon the military systems of some of the chief Continental nations.  But at length his health gave way under the strain of continuous overwork.  He had for a long time been delicate, and early in 1861 he was obliged to give up work, and was ordered to travel abroad.  He went to Greece and Constantinople, and enjoyed greatly the charms of scenery and of association which he was so well fitted to appreciate.  But the release from work had come too late.  He returned to England in July, his health but little improved.  In a letter written at that time he spoke of Lord Campbell’s death, which had just occurred.  “Lord Campbell’s death is rather the characteristic death of the English political man.  In the Cabinet, on the Bench, and at a dinner-party, busy, animated, and full of effort to-day, and in the early morning a vessel has burst.  It is a wonder they last so long.”  But of himself he says, in words of striking contrast,—­“My nervous energy is pretty nearly spent for to-day, so I must come to a stop.  I have leave till November, and by that time I hope I shall be strong again for another good spell of work.”  After a happy three weeks in England, he went abroad again, and spent some time with his friends the Tennysons in Auvergne