'That wonderful elasticity of disposition, that continual flow of wit, that facility of jest by which his conversation had been so distinguished, returned only at distant intervals,' says Millingen: 'from this time Byron fell into a state of melancholy from which none of our arguments could relieve him. He felt certain that his constitution had been ruined; that he was a worn-out man; and that his muscular power was gone. Flashes before his eyes, palpitations and anxieties, hourly afflicted him; and at times such a sense of faintness would overpower him, that, fearing to be attacked by similar convulsions, he would send in great haste for medical assistance. His nervous system was, in fact, in a continual state of erethism, which was certainly augmented by the low, debilitating diet which Dr. Bruno had recommended.' On one occasion Byron said to Dr. Millingen that he did not wish for life; it had ceased to have any attraction for him. 'But,' said Byron, 'the fear of two things now haunt me. I picture myself slowly expiring on a bed of torture, or ending my days like Swift--a grinning idiot! Would to Heaven the day were arrived in which, rushing, sword in hand, on a body of Turks, and fighting like one weary of existence, I shall meet immediate, painless death--the object of my wishes.' Two days after this seizure Byron made the following entry in his journal: 'With regard to the presumed causes of this attack, so far as I know, there might be several. The state of the place and the weather permit little exercise at present. I have been violently agitated with more than one passion recently, and amidst conflicting parties, politics, and (as far as regards public matters) circumstances. I have also been in an anxious state with regard to things which may be only interesting to my own private feelings, and, perhaps, not uniformly so temperate as I may generally affirm that I was wont to be. How far any or all of these may have acted on the mind or body of one who had already undergone many previous changes of place and passion during a life of thirty-six years, I cannot tell.' The following note, which is entered by Mr. Rowland Prothero in the new edition of Lord Byron's 'Letters and Journals,'[21] was dashed off by Byron in pencil, on the day of his seizure, February 15, 1824: 'Having tried in vain at great expense, considerable trouble, and some danger, to unite the Suliotes for the good of Greece--and their own--I have come to the following resolution: 'I will have nothing more to do with the Suliotes. They may go to the Turks, or the Devil,--they may cut me into more pieces than they have dissensions among themselves,--sooner than change my resolution. 'For the rest, I hold my means and person at the disposal of the Greek nation and Government the same as before.'