departed, did he proceed to the Continent for travel. Rest came not. A complication of disorders prevented sleep, and travel failed to remedy the evil. His mind had no longer the sustaining power which in former days had enabled him to meet with tranquillity the frowns of Fortune. He returned to England in 1774, and shortly afterwards, in November of that year, when apparently thoroughly conscious[1], fell by his own hand. 'To the last,' wrote Lord Stanhope, 'he appears to have retained his serene demeanour and stern dominion of his will.' It is difficult for us who have followed his career to realise the terrible upsetting of the balance of the great brain which had brought such an act within the bounds of possibility. 'Such was the end,' says a French writer, 'of one of the men who did the most for the greatness of England.' That foreign verdict is at least incontestable. Caesar conquered Gaul for his country; Hannibal caused unrest to Rome for nearly a quarter of a century; Wellington drove the French from Portugal and Spain. The achievement of Clive was more splendid than any one of these. He founded for this little island in the
- ↑ Lord Stanhope relates a story regarding the manner of Clive's death, told by the Earl of Shelburne, afterwards the first Marquis of Lansdowne, to the person from whom he (Lord Stanhope) received it. 'It so chanced, that a young lady, an attached friend of his (Clive's) family, was then upon a visit at his house in Berkeley Square, and sat writing a letter, in one of its apartments. Seeing Lord Clive walk through, she called him to come and mend her pen. Lord Clive obeyed her summons, and taking out his penknife fulfilled her request; after which, passing on to another chamber, he turned the same knife against himself.'
