Though a good deal shaken by the fall, he attended
at his office in Queen Anne's Gate, Westminster, the next and for
several following days; but the exertion proved too much for him, and
almost for the first time in his busy life he was compelled to lay up.
On his last visit to the office he was engaged most of the time in
dictating to his private secretary a large portion of the address which
he intended to deliver as Chairman of the Council of the Society of
Arts. This was on Thursday, November 8, and the following Saturday he
awoke early in the morning with an acute pain about the heart and a
sense of coldness in the lower limbs. Hot baths and friction removed the
pain, from which he did not suffer much afterwards. A slight congestion
of the left lung was also relieved; and Sir William had so far
recovered that he could leave his room. On Saturday, the 17th, he was to
have gone for a change of air to his country seat at Sherwood; but on
Wednesday, the 14th, he appears to have caught a chill which affected
his lungs, for that night he was seized with a shortness of breath and a
difficulty in breathing. Though not actually confined to bed, he never
left his room again. On the last day, and within four hours of his
death, we are told, his two medical attendants, after consultation,
spoke so hopefully of the future, that no one was prepared for the
sudden end which was then so near.
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