MEMOIR. XXX111 



pursuit of any difficult train of thought, 

 which was the production of another per- 

 son. I did not however, as well as I could 

 ascertain, become less equal than I had 

 been, for the pursuit of my own trains of 

 thought; in proof of which, I may perhaps 

 be allowed to say, that in the fourteen 

 years following this illness, I made more 

 literary efforts than I had done, during the 

 whole preceding period of my life. Dread- 

 ing however another attack of apoplexy, 

 or one of palsy, warnings of which I had 

 almost daily since that time received, I 

 determined to live most abstemiously, and 

 in consequence, took not more food when 

 I was at home (I dined there about four or 

 five times a week) than was sufficient for 

 a child of seven years old, and that con- 

 sisting of vegetable matter. I was the 

 more induced to adopt this manner of 

 proceeding, as my 'father and one of his 

 brothers had previously died of apoplexy ; 



