f nature resembles a table chequered with compartments of black and white: potentates and people have their rise and fall; cities and families their trines and sextiles, their quartiles and oppositions. Man is not placed on earth as the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the heavenly hosts, are placed on high, to run their courses, from age to age, with unerring constancy, and undeviating rectitude; but is subject to infirmities, miseries, interruptions; liable to be tossed and tumbled up and down, to be carried about with every veering wind, and to be disquieted and annoyed upon every light occasion. It is this sense of our situation, and of the danger to which we are exposed both from ourselves and others, that causes all our woe; and he who does not know this, says the learned Gallobelgicus, and is not prepared to suffer or resist his afflictions like a good soldier of Christ, is not fit to live*. It is certainly in our power to bury al adversity, as it were, in oblivion, and to call our prosperity to mind with pleasure and delight; and it is the husbandman who laboureth,' says St. Paul," that will be the first partaker of * "To judge," says an elegant writer, concerning the conduct of others, and to indulge observations on the instability of human enjoyments, may assist in the discipline of our own minds; but to allow reflections of this kind to become habitual, and to preside in our souls, is to counteract the good intention of nature in order, therefore, to anticipate a disposition so very painful to ourselves, and so disagreeable to others, we ought to learn, before we engage in the commerce of the world, what we may expect from society and from every individual." the fruits." But man, vain, weak man, instead of embracing the wise counsel of this eloquent divine, and counteracting the effects of discontent and misery, by the exertions of reason, instead of arming himself with patience and magnanimity, gives way to his passions, makes no opposition to the dejection which is seizing on his soul, indulges the growing disposition to melancholy, suffers his mind to be overcome by its effects, and, by voluntarily subjecting him-. self to its influence, precipitates himself into a labyrinth of cares, until the disposition to melancholy becomes an habitual disease. "A single distillation," says Seneca, not yet grown into a custom, produces a cough; but if it be long continued, and inveterate, it causes a consumption of the lungs; for many effects continued create a disease." So the indulgence of melancholy dispositions, according to the intention or remission of the humour which gives them birth, and in proportion as the mind is well or ill enabled to resist their progress, destroys the health and happiness of man. A distressing event which to one kind of temper would be no more than a fleabiting, will to another cause insufferable pain; and what one, by philosophic moderation, and well-composed carriage, is happily enabled to overcome, a second, especially if in habits of solitude and idleness, is unhappily no ways enabled to endure; but, upon every petty occasion of misconceived abuse, injury, grief, disgrace, or other vexation, yields so far to his wounded feelings, that his complexion alters, his digestion is impeded, his sleep interrupted, his spirits subdued, his heart oppressed, and his whole frame so misaffected, that he sinks, overwhelmed with misery, into profound despair. As a man when he is once imprisoned for debt, finds that every creditor immediately brings his action against him, and joins to keep him in ruinous captivity; so when any discontent seriously seizes on the human mind, all other perturbations instantly set upon it; and then like a lame dog, or a broken-winged goose, the unhappy patient droops and pines away, and is brought at last to the ill habit or malady of melancholy itself*. Philosophers make eight degrees of heat and eight degrees of cold; but we might make eighty-eight degrees of melancholy, according as the parts are diversely affected, or the patient is more or less plunged, or has waded deeper into this infernal gulf. But all these melancholy fits, however pleasing or displeasing, weak or violent, controlable or tyrannizing, they may at first be to those whom they seize on for a time, are but improperly * "The beasts," says Montaigne," shew us plainly how much our diseases are owing to the perturbations of our minds. We are told that the inhabitants of Brazil die merely of old age, owing to the serenity and tranquillity of the air in which they live; but I ascribe it rather to the serenity and tranquillity of their souls, which are free from all passion, thought, or laborious and unpleasant employment. As great enmities spring from great friendships, and mortal distempers from vigorous health, so do the most surprising and the wildest phrensies from the high and lively agitations of our souls." denominated melancholy, because they do not continue, but come and go as the objects vary by which they are induced. Pain and uneasiness give rise to this disorder, and change its appearance and complexion, according as the sources from which it flows is either gentle and languishing, or imbittered with rancor and animosity: but let the muse describe its sweet or sour effects as images of joy or grief present themselves alternately to the patient's mind. When to myself I talk and smile, And time, with pleasing thoughts, beguile, When I lie, sit, or walk alone, Methinks I hear, methinks I see, Now here, then there, the world is mine; Whate'er is lovely or divine. All other joys to this are folly; But when methinks I hear, and see, Methinks I court, methinks I kiss, Naught so sweet as Melancholy. But when I feel love's various frights, Deep sighs, sad tears, and sleepless nights, My jealous fits, my cruel fate! I then repent, but 'tis too late: |