rty years which followed, was one hard struggle
with poverty. The misery of that struggle needed no aggravation, but
was aggravated by the sufferings of an unsound body and an unsound mind.
Before the young man left the university, his hereditary malady had
broken forth in a singularly cruel form. He had become an incurable
hypochondriac. He said long after that he had been mad all his life, or
at least not perfectly sane; and, in truth, eccentricities less strange
than his have often been thought grounds sufficient for absolving
felons, and for setting aside wills. His grimaces, his gestures, his
mutterings, sometimes diverted and sometimes terrified people who did
not know him. At a dinner table he would, in a fit of absence, stoop
down and twitch off a lady's shoe. He would amaze a drawing-room by
suddenly ejaculating a clause of the Lord's Prayer. He would conceive
an unintelligible aversion to a particular alley, and perform a great
circuit rather than see the hateful place. He would set his heart on
touching every post in the streets through which he walked. If by any
chance he missed a post, he would go back a hundred yards and repair the
omission. Under the influence of his disease, his senses became morbidly
torpid, and his imagination morbidly active. At one time he would
stand poring on the town clock without being able to tell the hour. At
another, he would distinctly hear his mother, who was many miles off,
calling him by his name. But this was not the worst. A deep melancholy
took possession of him, and gave a dark tinge to all his views of human
nature and of human destiny. Such wretchedness as he endured has driven
many men to shoot themselves or drown themselves. But he was under no
temptation to commit suicide. He was sick of life; but he was afraid of
death; and he shuddered at every sight or sound which reminded him of
the inevitable hour. In religion he found but little comfort during his
long and frequent fits of dejection; for his religion partook of his
own character. The light from heaven shone on him indeed, but not in a
direct line, or with its own pure splendour. The rays had to struggle
through a disturbing medium; they reached him refracted, dulled and
discoloured by the thick gloom which had settled on his soul; and,
though they might be sufficiently clear to guide him, were too dim to
cheer him.

With such infirmities of body and mind, this celebrated man was left, at
two-and-twenty, to f