to lay my whole heart at the foot of the cross."

Early in January following he returned to Cambridge, and
imprudently resumed his old habits of study, according to the
following plan: "Rise at half-past five; devotions and walk till
seven; chapel and breakfast till eight; study and lectures till
one; four and a half clear reading; walk, &c. and dinner, and
Wollaston, and chapel to six; six to nine reading, three hours;
nine to ten devotions; bed at ten." With him, however, exercise
was but slight relaxation, as his intellectual faculties were kept
on the stretch during his walks, and he is known to have committed
to memory a whole tragedy of Euripides in this manner, and as they
were not less exerted in his devotions, his mind must have been
intensely occupied for twelve or fourteen hours a day, at a moment
when perfect quiet and rest were indispensable. Within a very few
weeks he paid a heavy penalty for his indiscretion. To his friend,
Mr. Haddock, he wrote on the 17th of February, 1806:

"Do not think I am reading hard; I believe it is all over with
that. I have had a recurrence of my old complaint within this last
four or five days, which has half unnerved me for every thing. The
state of my health is really miserable; I am well and lively in
the morning, and overwhelmed with nervous horrors in the evening.
I do not know how to proceed with regard to my studies:--a very
slight overstretch of the mind in the daytime occasions me not
only a sleepless night, but a night of gloom and horror. The
systole and diastole of my heart seem to be playing at ball--the
stake, my life. I can only say the game is not yet decided:--I
allude to the violence of the palpitation. I am going to mount the
Gog-magog hills this morning, in quest of a good night's sleep.