GE. Melan

character

evinces a

most hu

suit or his residence. And hence, while Albert Durer GEN. L is entitled to the approbation he has so long received for his admirable picture of melancholy under the guise of a cholia pensive female leaning on her arm with fixed looks and errabunda. neglected dress, Shakspeare has equally copied from nature in his description of the beautiful and interesting Ophelia, Instanced who, instead of shutting herself up from the world, and in the seeking silence and solitude, is represented as peculiarly of Ophelia. busy and talkative, and unwittingly divulging the fond secret of her distraction to every one she meets, as well in verse as in prose. Sadness is the prevailing colour of the Often mind; but it is often, as Jaques expresses it, "a most humorous sadness," so blended with sallies of pleasantry morous and wit, that it is impossible to listen to them without sadness. smiling, notwithstanding the gravity of the occasion. "Humorous they are," says Burton (and unhappily for Description himself no one knew how to describe the disease better), Burton. "beyond all measure; sometimes profusely laughing, extraordinary merry, and then again weeping without a cause; groaning, sighing, pensive, and almost distracted. Multa absurda fingunt et à ratione aliena*; they feign many absurdities, void of all reason: one supposeth himself to be a dog, cock, bear, horse, glass, butter. He is a giant, a dwarf, as strong as an hundred men, a lord, duke, prince. Many of them are immovable and fixed in their conceits; others vary upon every object heard or seen. If they see a stage-play, they run upon that for a week after; if they hear music or see dancing, they have nought but bagpipes in their brain; if they see a combat, they are all for arms; if abused, the abuse troubles them long after. Restless in their thoughts and actions, continually meditating,

-velut ægri somnia, vanæ Finguntur species :—

more like dreamers than men awake, they feign a company of entire fantastical conceits: they have most frivolous thoughts impossible to be effected; and sometimes think verily that they hear and see present before their eyes such phantasms or goblins they fear, suspect, or conceive:

from

* Frambes. Consult. Lib. 1. 17.

SPEC. I.

cholia errabunda.

GEN. I. they still talk with and follow them. They wake,' says B E. Melan- Avicenna, as others dream.' Though they do talk with you, and seem to be very intent and busy, they are only thinking of a toy; and still that toy runs in their mind whatever it be; that fear, that suspicion, that abuse, that jealousy, that agony, that vexation, that cross, that castle in the air, that crochet, that whimsie, that fiction, that pleasant waking dream. If it be offensive, especially, they cannot forget it; they may not rest or sleep for it; but still tormenting themselves, Sisiphi saxum volvunt sibi suis."

Reflection from the

above

to Burton

himself.

How melancholy a reflection that the writer of this spirited description should have drawn many of its feadescription 'tures from himself; and that the work from which it in reference is copied, engaged in for the purpose of diverting his thoughts, and replete with genius, learning, and the finest humour, should only have exasperated the disease, and urged the pitiable patient, as there is too much reason to fear, to an untimely end! "He composed his book," says Mr. Granger," with a view of relieving his own melancholy, but it increased it to such a degree, that nothing could make him laugh but going to the bridge-foot, and hearing the ribaldry of the bargemen, which rarely failed to throw him into a violent fit of laughter. Before he was overcome with this horrid disorder, he, in the intervals of his vapours, was esteemed one of the most facetious companions in the university."

y E. Melancholia malevolens.

Description.

sarcastic,

The THIRD VARIETY, in which the alienation assumes a morose or mischievous character, is perhaps the most common form under which the disease makes its appearance. Sometimes the patient is extremely passionate, and will quarrel furiously with every one alike, in whatever tone or manner he is addressed, and expresses himself with Language great violence of language, occasionally with gross unquasometimes lified abuse, but occasionally also in a style of repartee that never was evinced in a sane state. More generally, however, he selects his objects of resentment; which are, for the most part, unaccountably taken from his nearest relations and kindest friends. Against these he harbours the blackest suspicion and jealousy, believing that they are haunting him to take away his money or his life, or to put Sometimes him to torture. He loads them with every term of the the vehicle deadliest hatred, or scowls at them with contempt, and

SPEC. I.

E.Melan

of deadly

faneness.

sensible of

[ORD. I. denounces them as fools and idiots. Under the distressing GEN. I. influence of this horrid form of the disease, the mother. abominates her infant family, and the wife her husband; cholia the most chaste become lascivious; and lips, which have malevolens. hitherto uttered nothing but the precepts and the language hatred: of piety, become grossly profane, and are the vehicles of impudence oaths and impudence. The unhappy individuals are at and prothe same time not only sensible of what they say or do, The patient but occasionally, sensible of its being wrong, will express occasionally their sorrow for it immediately afterwards, and say they this, and will not do so again. But the waywardness of the will, expresses and its want of control by the judgment, urge them for- but soon ward in spite of their desire, and they relapse into the relapses: same state almost as soon as they have expressed their regret. Mr. Locke has, with great ability, pointed out the proper distinction between these two faculties of the DESIRE and the WILL, and has exemplified it by the the desire chastisement with which an indulgent father frequently opposed by finds himself called upon to visit an offending child, and which he wills to perform though his desire is in the utmost degree reluctant. The disease before us is pregnant with examples of the same kind, and strikingly shows the correctness, with which this great master of his subject analyzed the human mind.

sorrow:

the will.

the ex

less in

ament.

We have already observed, that the peculiar turn or Case in modification of the malady depends in general far less proof that upon the immediate and exciting cause, than upon the citing cause constitutional temperament, or some operative principle produces which we cannot always develope. And in proof of this fluence than it may be hinted, that I have drawn the principal linea- the temperments of the description just laid down from the case of a lady of about sixty years of age, respecting whom I was lately consulted, and whose exciting cause has been, manifestly, suppressed grief for the death of an only son, and separation from a daughter who was the remaining solace of her advancing years, in consequence of her having married a gentleman, whose station is in a remote part of the globe. Possessed by nature of a high and commanding spirit, and of a peculiar degree of energy and activity, she effectually succeeded, by a violent internal struggle, in subduing the pangs that at first suffocated her; and has for several years talked of her daughter, and her daughter's children, for the latter has since become a mother, without

GEN. I. emotion. But with the loss of fine feeling for her daughter, SPEC. I. she has lost, at the same time, all fine feeling upon other

y E.Melan

malevolens.

cholia subjects; and her judgment has sunk amidst the general wreck. The love of her nearest relations has turned to contempt or hatred; the ardour and animation of her mind, which restrain her from taciturnity and retirement, have rendered her forward and invective; rational expostulation has yielded to sudden and unmeaning fits of violence and blows, and the voice of piety to exclamations that would formerly have shocked her beyond endurance. She, too, is often sensible of her doing wrong, and in letters of great sobriety and excellence, often complains of her own conduct, and the burden she is become to her friends; but the intervals of sanity are only of a few hours' duration, and, with all her calmness, she is sure to relapse*. For many months she was intrusted in her own house to the control of a professional female attendant, who, with great dexterity, at length succeeded in obtaining a due degree of authority over her without personal restraint; and, under the regimen of perfect quiet and seclusion from the world, she seemed to be in a fair way of recovery; but the mischievous fondness of her nearest relations has since removed this faithful watch woman, and her senses have again been bartered for her liberty.

Tendency

and abusive

The symptoms most afflictive to the relations of the to violence patient in this variety of insanity, are the tendency to behold language them with indifference or even violent aversion, and to accounted utter exclamations and employ language of the most

for.

offensive kind to a serious and a delicate ear; and it is the symptom apparently most unaccountable to those who have not studied the disease with much attention. I have already remarked that, in insanity, the corporeal sensibility is greatly diminished, but it is not more so than the moral sensibility; and as the moral sensibility disappears, all moral restraint disappears also: and for the very reason that the insane man has little feeling of cold or hunger, he has also little feeling of decency or religion. In the present variety, the worst passions are in a state of excitement, and the language most freely employed is the language of the passion that predominates, and there being

• Compare with the Report of the Glasgow Asylum for Lunatics, 1821.

SPEC. I. YE. Melan

no longer any moral restraint, it is einployed in its utmost Ges. T vehemence and coarseness. And as the fond affections have given way to the irascible, it should seem to follow of cholia course, that the greater the love or friendship formerly, the greater the hatred at present.

malevolens.

one con

There is one consolation, however, though a small one This methat we may reap from this distressing contemplation, and condition to which the friends of the sufferer should not be indif- capable of affording ferent. It is that, with this blunted sensibility of mind, the patient has no pain from a consciousness of his de- solation. graded condition. And it is singular to observe, what may also contribute to alleviate the distress of the sympathizing heart, how completely his unconsciousness prevails even after a patient's restoration to health, so that few look back upon what they have undergone with the horror that would be expected; while many, even in the apprehension of a relapse, contemplate it, and turn their eye to the abode of misery where they were lately inmates without dread.

placens.

The FOURTH VARIETY or SELF-COMPLACENT melan- d E. Melancholia comeholy is perhaps less frequent than any of the rest; but it occurs occasionally, and is often accompanied with a high- Description. coloured and ruddy complexion, and other marks of a sanguineous habit: "Such persons," says Burton, "are much inclined to laughter, are witty and merry, conceited in discourse, pleasant, if they be not far gone, and much given to music, dancing, and to be in women's company." Aristotle gives the case of an inhabitant of Abydos, who, labouring under this variety of the disease, would sit for a whole day as if he had been upon a stage, listening to visionary actors; sometimes acting himself, and occasionally clapping his hands and laughing as overjoyed with the performance*. Such persons have not unfrequently thought themselves called upon to undertake some desperate ad-' venture, and are exquisitely elated with the new and lofty character they are about to embrace.

These stimulant feelings are not unfrequently connected The elated feeling with erroneous ideas of religion, and excite in the mind of often conthe patient a belief, that he is supernaturally endowed with nected with a power of working miracles, or undergoing the severest ideas of religion.

erroneous

VOL. IV.

Lib. de Reb. mir.

H