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neither to receive nor to give enjoyment; and that meantime (by the same kind providence of nature against worse consequences) they do suffer and sympathize greatly on occasion, often to a far greater degree than the author chooses to think. The sick neighbor feeling for the dying man endures but half the anguish of many (I do not say of all) who are here called "snivellers round a bed," and who would sometimes gladly die instead of the sufferer? What? Have not millions of lives been thrown away for less things than love; and are we to be told by a loveless misanthrope, girding his own friends, that affection never grieves for a death beyond a "month" or a 66 day?" Nonsense. I mourn with, and admire Swift, who was a great man, notwithstanding what was little in him; but (wit excepted) he fell to the level of the vulgar when he "sunk in the spleen."

Yet how handsome the opportunity he takes of complimenting Pope and others at his own expense, and how pleasantly it tells both against him and for him!

7 Refin'd it first, and show'd its use.-A bold claim, after Butler and all the other wits and poets who excelled in it! and, indeed, quite unfounded.

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GREEN.

BORN, 1696-died, 1737.

THE author of the Spleen, a poem admired by Pope, and quoted by Johnson, was a clerk in the custom-house, and had been bred a quaker. He was subject to low spirits, and warded them off by wit and good sense. Something of the quaker may be ob servable in the stiffness of his versification, and its excessive endeavors to be succinct. His style has also the fault of being occasionally obscure; and his wit is sometimes more labored than finished. But all that he says is worth attending to. His thoughts are the result of his own feeling and experience; his opinions rational and cheerful, if not very lofty; his warnings against meddling with superhuman mysteries admirable; and he is remarkable for the brevity and originality of his similes. He is of the school of Butler; and it may be affirmed of him as a rare honor, that no man since Butler has put so much wit and reflection into the same compass of lines.

There is an edition of Green's poems by Dr. Aikin, which deserves to be the companion of all who suffer as the author did, and who have sense enough to wish to relieve their sufferings by the like exercise of their reason.

In printing the following extracts I have not adopted the asterisks commonly employed for the purpose of implying omission. I always use them unwillingly, on account of the fragmentary air they give to the passages; and the paragraphs closed up so well together in the present instance, that I was tempted to waive them. But the circumstance is mentioned in order to prevent a false conclusion.

REMEDIES FOR THE SPLEEN.'

To cure the mind's wrong bias, spleen, Some recommend the bowling-green; Some hilly walks: all, exercise ; Fling but a stone, the giant dies. Laugh and be well. Monkeys have been Extreme good doctors for the spleen ; And kittens, if the humor hit, Have harlequin'd away the fit.

If spleen fogs rise at close of day,
I clear my evening with a play,
Or to some concert take my way,
The company, the shine of lights,
The scenes of humor, music's flights,
Adjust, and set the soul to rights.

In rainy days keep double guard,
Or spleen will surely be too hard;
Which, like those fish by sailors met,
Fly highest while their wings are wet.
In such dull weather so unfit

To enterprise a work of wit,
When clouds one yard of azure sky,
That's fit for simile, deny,

I dress my face with studious looks,
And shorten tedious hours with books.
But when dull fogs invade the head,
That mem'ry minds not what is read,
I sit in window dry as ark,

And on the drowning world remark;
Or to some coffee-house I stray
For news, the manna of a day,
And from the hipp'd discourses gather,
That politics go by the weather,
Then seek good-humor'd tavern chums,
And play at cards, but for small sums;

Or with the merry fellows quaff,
And laugh aloud with them that laugh;

Or drink a joco-serious cup

With souls who've took their freedom up; And let my mind, beguil'd by talk,

In Epicurus' garden walk,

Who thought it heav'n to be serene ;

Pain, hell; and purgatory, spleen.

Sometimes I dress, with women sit,
And chat away the gloomy fit;
Quit the stiff garb of serious sense,
And wear a gay impertinence.

Permit, ye fair, your idol-form,
Which e'en the coldest heart can warm,
May with its beauties grace my line,
While I bow down before its shrine,
And your throng'd altars with my lays
Perfume, and get by giving praise.
With speech so sweet, so sweet a mien,
You excommunicate the spleen,
Which fiend-like flies the magic ring
You form with sound, when pleas'd to sing.
Whate'er you say, howe'er you move,
We look, we listen, and approve.
Your touch, which gives to feeling bliss,
Our nerves officious throng to kiss.
By Celia's pat, on their report,
The grave-air'd soul, inclin'd to sport,
Renounces wisdom's sullen pomp,
And loves the floral game, to romp.
But who can view the pointed rays,
That from black eyes scintillant blaze?
Love on his throne of glory seems
Encompass'd with satèllite beams.
But when blue eyes, more softly bright,
Diffuse benignly humid light,

We gaze, and see the smiling loves,
And Cytherea's gentle doves,

And raptur'd fix in such a face

Love's mercy-seat and throne of grace.
Shine but on age, you melt its snow;
Again fires long-extinguish'd glow,
And charm'd by witchery of eyes,
Blood long congealed liquefies!
True miracle, and fairly done

By heads which are ador'd while on.2

Such thoughts as love the gloom of night,

I close examine by the light;

For who, though brib'd by gain to lie,
Dare sunbeam-written truths deny,
And execute plain common sense
On faith's mere hearsay evidence?

That superstition mayn't create,
And club its ills with those of fate,
I many a notion take to task,
Made dreadful by its visor mask.
Thus scruple, spasm of the mind,
Is cur'd, and certainly I find ;
Since optic reason shows me plain,
I dreaded spectres of the brain;
And legendary fears are gone,
Though in tenacious childhood sown.
Thus in opinions I commence
Freeholder in the proper sense,
And neither suit nor service do,
Nor homage to pretenders show,
Who boast themselves, by spurious roll,
Lords of the manor of the soul;
Preferring sense, from chin that's bare,
To nonsense thron'd in whisker'd hair.

Thus, then, I steer my bark, and sail
On even keel with gentle gale;
At helm I make my reason sit,

My crew of passions all submit.
If dark and blust'ring prove some nights,
Philosophy puts forth her lights;
Experience holds the cautious glass,
To shun the breakers, as I pass,
And frequent throws the wary lead,
To see what dangers may be hid;
And once in seven years I'm seen
At Bath or Tunbridge to careen.
Though pleas'd to see the dolphins play,
I mind my compass and my way.3
With store sufficient for belief,
And wisely still prepar'd to reef,
Nor wanting the dispersive bowl
Of cloudy weather in the soul,
I make (may Heav'n propitious send
Such wind and weather to the end)
Neither becalm'd nor overblown,
Life's voyage to the world unknown.

'The disorder here called the Spleen, was of old called Melancholy, or Hypochondria; then it became Vapors or the Hyp, then the Spleen, then the Nerves or Low Spirits. The designa

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