As soon as there were reasonable hopes of an adequate support being obtained for him at Cambridge, he went to the village of Wilford, for a month, to recruit his health, on which intense application had made great inroads. Near this place were Clifton Woods, the subject of one of his Poems, and which had long been his favourite resort. Here he fully indulged in that love of the beauties of nature, which forms a leading trait in the Poetic character: and on this occasion he gave full reins to those reveries of the imagination, of the delight of which a Poet only is sensible. His lines on Wilford Church Yard show the melancholy tone of his mind; and those Verses, as well as his "Ode to Disappointment," of which no praise would be too extravagant, appear to have been written, on learning from his mother, before he left Wilford, that the efforts made to place him at Cambridge had failed. It was evidently to this circumstance, which for the time blighted his aspirations, that he alluded, when he says he was, "From Hope's summit hurl'd." His remark to his mother on this occasion evinced, nevertheless, great energy of mind. His complaints were confined to verse, for the disappointment had no other effect upon his conduct than to induce him to apply to his studies with unprecedented vigour, that, since he was to revert to the law as a profession, he might not be, as he observed, "a _mediocre_ attorney." He read regularly from five in the morning until some time after midnight, and occasionally passed whole nights without lying down; and the entreaties, even when accompanied by the tears of his mother, that he would not thus destroy his health, did not induce him to relax his zeal. Symptoms of consumption, the disease to which he ultimately became a victim, and which he designates, in one of his many allusions to it, as "The most fatal of Pandora's train," began now to excite the anxiety of his family. Illness was, however, forgotten in the realization of the hope dearest to his heart. The exertions of his friends proved successful at a time when all expectations had vanished; and by their united efforts it was resolved that he should become a sizer of St. John's College, Cambridge, his brother Neville, his mother, and a benevolent individual, whose name is not mentioned, having agreed to contribute to support him. It appears, that if he had not succeeded in that object, he intended to have joined the society of orthodox dissenters, for which purpose he underwent an examination. Though his attainments and character proved satisfactory on that occasion, his volume of Poems rose in judgment against him, and nothing but the approbation Mr. Southey had expressed of them prevented his work from being considered a disqualification for the ministry. His feelings on the prospect of entering the Church are described with great force in his letter, dated in April, 1804.