of success, in a profession which he had made so many sacrifices to embrace, promised in time to be realized. But these prospects were speedily overclouded by an accident which completely put a stop to his military career, and gave a different complexion to the whole tenor of his life and habits. Some one of his companions, in sport, had lifted him by the head, and thereby strained so severely the glands of his neck, that he was for some time placed in the greatest danger. After many remedies had been tried to no purpose, a cure was at last effected by the celebrated M. Tenon, by means of a complicated operation. But his health had by this time become so much impaired, that after residing for a length of time in Paris in the hope of its amendment, he found it necessary to abandon all intention of rejoining the army.
In these circumstances it became necessary for him to think of some new occupation, and he seems not to have been long in forming a resolution to study medicine. His pecuniary circumstances, however, were so very limited, consisting of a pension of only 400 francs, that he was obliged in the mean time to employ himself as a clerk in the office of a banker in order to obtain the means of daily subsistence. The intervals he spent in study; and such were the buoyancy and activity of his mind, that even when his prospects were most discouraging, he never seems to have lost the expectation of rising to usefulness and distinction. He reverted with eagerness to the physical studies which he had
