The limiting total excitation energy of ²⁰⁸Pb is calculated using the nuclear grand partition function. A temperature-dependent shell-model potential and an energy-dependent nucleon-nucleus optical potential are employed to generate the temperature-dependent bound single particle energies epsilon _k and the continuum level density rho ( epsilon ) respectively. Levinson's theorem is used to make the relevant change in rho ( epsilon ) due to the T dependence of epsilon _k(T). The calculated limiting total excitation energy is about half of the one recently obtained by Dean and Mosel (1985).