On the 18th November, the same year, the Duke had an attack of epilepsy, which for a short time alarmed the public greatly for his safety, on account of his advanced age.  Sir Astley Cooper and Dr. Hume were down at Walmer with him for a week, at the end of which time he recovered, greatly to the joy of the whole nation.  It turned out that the Duke had brought on the attack adopting, to cure himself of a slight illness, a mode of treatment which would not be the most wise in a man of twenty-five, but was most dangerous to one so advanced in years.  The Duke is very determined on such points—­can never be persuaded that he is not the same man in point of constitution that he was when in the Peninsula; and still preserves all the hardy habits of a soldier’s life.  On this occasion he had sought to cure himself by fasting and cold bathing:  he then, while under this treatment, followed the hounds, the consequence of which was that he fainted, and was soon afterwards seized as described.

On the return of Sir Robert Peel to power, in 1841, the Duke of Wellington again joined him; but this time he took no office, though accepting a seat in the cabinet.  He still continued to lead in the lords, where his influence is fully felt, and where he constantly astonishes the house and silences his detractors by displaying a degree of knowledge on all legislative subjects scarcely compatible with his military education, and an activity and attention to business that would be admirable in any one, but which are still more praiseworthy as the voluntary service of a man who has conferred such distinguished benefits on his country.

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Few men have been so blessed by fortune as to have been enabled to achieve a first-rate reputation in arms, and afterwards to arrive at as great distinction in the arts of peace.  Rarely, at long intervals in the lapse of time, such opportunities have been afforded to great men; but still more rarely have even the greatest men been able to use them.  To the Duke of Wellington, in our own time, has this high honour been especially vouchsafed; and no man ever yet lived who shewed himself more worthy the distinction, or more able to fulfill the demands of his country, whether in peace or in war.  His youth and prime were spent in achieving victories:  to preserve to posterity the fruits of those victories, in steady government, together with free institutions; to make England such an example for foreign nations as would render all such victories unnecessary hereafter; this has been the still more glorious task of his declining years.

The military reputation of the Duke of Wellington rests on so firm a basis, that it will never be shaken.  So long as military science is necessary in the world, so long will his system of tactics be followed by commanders responsible in their own hearts for the lives of their soldiers, and to their country for the conduct of their enterprises.