Such patience lad developed and he succeeded in reforming (7,2,3,3)

'succeeded in reforming' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I cannot tell whether this works.

'such patience lad developed and he' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'lad' could be 'ed' and 'ed' is located in the answer.
'and' could be 'n' (common abbreviation for 'and') and 'n' is present in the answer.
'he' could be 'isac' and 'isac' is found within the answer.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).

Can you help me to learn more?