459 



Majesty." But the wary King-partitioner had the 

 sense to see what might follow from hence, and told his 

 correspondent that the event was too recent to be the 

 fit subject of an historical work (XVII. 235, 6. 240.) 



In the course of this correspondence D'Alembert 

 went twice to visit Frederick, once in 1755, when 

 the latter was at Wesel on the Rhine ; and again in 

 1763, when he passed two months with the king at 

 Potsdam. The impression left on the royal mind by 

 both these visits was highly favourable to D'Alembert, 

 as might well be expected from his modest, ingenuous 

 nature, and excellent social habits. 



Towards his sixty-fourth year his health which had 

 never been robust, though his life was eminently tem- 

 perate, and always with an entire abstinence from 

 fermented liquors began to decline. A feeble diges- 

 tion and constant difficulty of sleeping, had long been 

 the bane of his bodily comfort. To these ailments 

 was now added an affection of the bladder, which his 

 medical friends found to be beyond the reach of their 

 art. He suffered exceedingly for the last three years 

 of his life, and suffered with an exemplary calmness 

 and even cheerfulness : at length, exhausted with pain, 

 with irritation more than pain, with sleeplessness, with 

 indigestion, and its consequent weakness, he expired 

 on the twenty ninth of October, 1783, in the sixty- 

 seventh year of his age. His most intimate friend, 

 Diderot, died of dropsy nearly about the same time. 

 It is emphatically stated by Grimm, whose intimacy 

 with Diderot gave him means of knowing the truth of 

 the assertion, that D'Alembert might have prolonged 

 his life had he not refused submitting to a surgical 

 operation. Be that as it may, during his long and 

 painful illness his mind appeared exhausted like his 

 body, but the mental feebleness was only apparent; 

 for the intervals of ease which he had were occupied 

 with mathematical investigations, and with other sub- 

 jects that interested him. His sick chamber was 



