On reaching London his case was very carefully diagnosed by three of the most eminent English specialists, Dr. Farre, Sir William Adams, and Mr. (afterward Sir) Astley Cooper. Their verdict was not encouraging, for they decided that no local treatment of his eyes could be of any particular advantage, and that the condition of the right eye would always depend very largely upon the general condition of his system. They prescribed for him, however, and he followed out their regimen with conscientious scrupulosity. After a three months' stay in London, he crossed the Channel and took up his abode in Paris. In England, owing to his affliction, he had been able to do and see but little, because he was forbidden to leave his room after nightfall, and of course he could not visit the theatre or meet the many interesting persons to whom Mr. John Quincy Adams, then American Minister to England, offered to present him. Something he saw of the art collections of London, and he was especially impressed by the Elgin Marbles and Raphael's cartoons. There was a touch of pathos in the wistful way in which he paused in the booksellers' shops and longingly turned over rare editions of the classics which it was forbidden him to read. "When I look into a Greek or Latin book," he wrote to his father, "I experience much the same sensation as does one who looks on the face of a dead friend, and the tears not infrequently steal into my eyes." In Paris he remained two months, and passed the following winter in Italy, making a somewhat extended tour, and visiting the most famous of the Italian cities in company with an old schoolmate. Thence he returned to Paris, where once more he had a grievous attack of his malady; and at last, in May of 1817, he again reached London, embarking not long after for the United States. Before leaving England on this second visit, he had explored Oxford and Cambridge, which interested him extremely, but which he was glad to leave in order to be once more at home. CHAPTER III THE CHOICE OF A CAREER