 Soon afterwards his own health began to fail, in consequence of his intense application to study; and even his eyesight was so impaired with the poring of years over dim and difficult manuscripts, as to threaten total blindness.Cessation from labour and the recreation of travel were judged necessary for his recovery; and accordingly, in the summer of 1822, he made a short tour of two months to the continent, during which his studies were only changed, not suspended, and he returned home considerably invigorated in health and spirits.On his return, a new and soul-inspiring subject quickly brought him into action; it was the cause of Greece, that land so trampled under foot and crushed into the dust by centuries of oppression, but now rising from the dead; the first to attempt the great historical problem, as to whether a whole nation may be capable of a resurrection and a new life after ages of death and burial.