felt the misery of energies over tasked; and wrote to me of himself, with prophetic truth, that he was “ almost one of those wretched beings whom Lord Byron describes,
Their breath is agitation, and their life
A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last. ”
He was then harassed by business of various descriptions,
connected with his property; he was
laboriously occupied, and with little profit; and for
many a year, or even to the last, his mind was not
only continually employed, but even irritated, and
almost continually over-exerted.
This being his habitual state, it was not to be wondered at that the function of digestion should become imperfectly performed; that he should experience irregularities of the circulation, sometimes painfully affecting his head, and sometimes disturbing the action of the heart. On one or two occasions, he suffered severe attacks of a description of cholera; although not at the time when the disease was prevalent in England. His nights were frequently very restless; and in his tumultuous sleep he was subject to convulsive actions of different voluntary muscles; never, however, so severe or general as to constitute a paroxysm. The trouble of his bodily health reacted upon his mind: he became more impatient, more anxious, more responding of his prospects, or more sensible of the difficulties with which he had to struggle, even when his prospects were rapidly improving. Clear and bright, amidst all this trouble, the light of his intellect continued to shine, undiminished by care, and unimpaired by bodily languor. Nothing which
