SPEC. II. a E. atoni cum Desi derii. Ungovernable longing or love. times, and especially among the Swiss, when their man- GEN. II. ners were simpler, and their domestic virtues and feelings much stronger than they seem to have been of late years, produced not only a permanent melancholy but hectic fever. Yet it is to the third that our attention is chiefly called on the present occasion, from the greater frequency of its occurrence and the severer and more tragic effects to which it has led, where obstacles have arisen in its progress. We have, on the present occasion, nothing whatever to do with the gross passion of concupiscence, which is as different from that of pure and genuine love as light from darkness. The man of lust has indeed his love, but it is a love that centres in himself and seeks alone his own gratification; while the passion we are now speaking of puts self completely out of the field, and would voluntarily submit to every pain, and sacrifice even life itself, in promoting the happiness of the beloved object. Yet, constituted as we are by nature for the wisest and best of purposes, a pure corporeal orgasm still enweaves itself with the sentimental desire, though subordinate to it in virtuous minds, and the flame is fed from a double source. 66 Nuptial love," says Lord Bacon, “maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth it: but wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it"*. The last most frequent and most severe. Present emotion of love totally distinct from gross concupis cence: though inwith a pure corporeal terwoven orgasm. the emotion of no importance: for the judgement is equally overpower ed, what What it is that first lights up this flame is of no im- Origin of portance to the present subject. A peculiar cast of form or of features acknowledged by all to be moulded according to the finest laws of symmetry, and productive of a high degree of external grace or beauty; or a figure or a manner that to the eye of the enamoured beholder gives token of a mind adorned with all he can wish for; or an actual knowledge, from long acquaintance, of the exist- immediate ence of such internal cultivation and excellence, may be equally causes of the same common effect. And hence this is of little or no account; for the passion being once excited, the judgement runs a risk of being overpowered ever the cause of excitement. The ex cited feelings give rise to ro mantic ideas of the imagi II. GEN. IT a E. atoni cum Desi derii. Ungovernable longing or love. nation: by obstacles growing wilder and more visionary : whence the mind led astray and the body exhausted. Though a febrile state rarely leads to insanity, while a by its warmth and violence; and the moment it is overpowered, the new train of ideas that are let loose upon the mind are of a romantic character; and as soon as any obstacle starts up as a barrier in the vista of hope, instead of being damped or repressed, they grow wilder and more vivid, till at length the sensorial system is worn out by the vehemence of its labour; and though the excitement is really less than at first, because there is less vascular vigour for its support, it is still greater than ever compared with the weakened state of the sentient organ. Yet love-sickness itself, whatever mischief it may work in the corporeal frame, by sleepless nights, a feverish pulse, and loss of appetite*, and however, from the exalted state of the imagination, and the increased sensifollows, it bility of the body, it may transpose the reality of life into a kind of visionary existence, and so far produce mental derangement, rarely leads to direct insanity, so long as there is the remotest hope of the attainment of its object. But if hope be suddenly cut off by an inexorable refusal, the intervention of a more fortunate rival, the concealment of the object of adoration, or any other cause whatever, the mind is sometimes incapable of resisting the shock thus produced by the concurrent yet opposite powers of desire and despair; and in a moment in which the hope of attaining the desired object remains. But if in this state of excitement all hope be suddenly cut off, despair of ten follows, and some times suicide or other murder. Exemplified. ẞ E. atonicum Auri famis. Ungovernable ava rice. judgement is completely overwhelmed, the love-sick maniac calls to his aid the demoniacal passion of revenge, and, almost at hazard, determines upon a plan of murder directed against his rival, his mistress, or himself. The story of Mr. Hackman and Miss Rae will at once, perhaps, occur to the recollection of most of the author's readers in proof of this assertion. He himself had some acquaintance with the former; and is convinced from what he knew of him that nothing but a paroxysm of insanity could have urged him to so horrible an act. The operation of the passion of AVARICE when it has * Schurig. Gyneaolog. p. 94. Horstius, An Pulsus aliquis amatorius concedendus? SPEC. II. famis. rice. The emo tion. once obtained an ascendancy over the mind is altogether GEN. II. of a different nature from that of the preceding variety, 6 E. atonithough it often produces a wider and more chronic alie- cum Auri nation. It has not a stirring property of any kind be- Ungovernlonging to it; but benumbs and chills every energy of able avathe body as well as of the soul, like the stream of Lethe; even the imagination is rendered cold and stagnant; and tion altothe only passions with which it forms a confederacy are gether op the miserable train of gloomy fear, suspicion, and anxiety. the preposed to The body grows thin in the midst of wealth, the limbs ceding. totter though surrounded by cordials, and the man volun- Descriptarily starves himself in the granary of plenty, not from a want of appetite, but from a dread of giving way to it. The individual who is in such a state of mind must be estranged upon this point, how much soever he may be at home upon others. Yet these are cases that are daily occurring, and have been in all ages: though perhaps one of the most curious is that related by Valerius Maxi- Singular example. mus of a miser who took advantage of a famine to sell a mouse for two hundred pence, and then famished himself with the money in his pocket*. And hence the madness of the covetous man has been a subject of sarcasm and ridicule by moralists and dramatic writers in every period, of which we have sufficient examples in the writings of Aristophanes, Lucian, and Moliere. cum Anxie able anxiety. Ungovern There is another mental feeling of a very afflictive, and E. atonitoo often, like the last, of a chronic kind, which is fre- tatis. quently found to usurp a dominion over the judgement, and to imbitter life with false and visionary ideas, and that is a habit of ANXIETY or PREYING CARE; which not only drives the individual who possesses it mad, but runs the risk of doing the same to all who are about him, and are harassed with his complaints and discontents. This is sometimes the effect of a long succession of mis- Occasional fortunes or vexatious troubles; but seems in some persons to depend on a very high degree of nervous sensibility, united with a choleric or melancholic tempera Lib. vII. Cap. vr. causes. γ GEN. II. E. atoni cum Anxie tatis. Ungovern ment. Their age, wealth, or situation in life is of no importance, and though their digestive powers are good, and they are not hypochondriacs, they are always apprehensive and full of alarm, and flee from every appearance of able anxiety, joy as they would from an apparition, or even sooner. In Description. the language of Butler, who knew too well how to describe them, "The old are full of aches in their bones, croups and convulsions; dull of hearing, weak-sighted, hoary, wrinkled, harsh, so much so that they cannot know their own selves in a glass, a burthen to themselves and others. If they be sound they fear diseases; if sick weary of their lives. One complains of want, a second of servitude, another of a secret or incurable disease, of some deformity of body, of some loss, danger, death of friends, shipwreck, persecution, imprisonment, disgrace, repulse, contumely, calumny, abuse, injury, contempt, ingratitude, unkindness, scoffs, scouts, unfortunate marriage, single life, too many children, no children, false servants, unhappy children, barrenness, banishment, oppression, frustrate hopes, ill success; > E. atonicum Mæroris. able heart ache. Cætera de genere hoc, adeo sunt multa, loquacem, "In the mean time," continues the younger Democritus, Nothing can be more different than this constitutional pining, and the pains produced by HEART-ACHE or the Ungovern- reality of severe grief. The former is talkative and querulous; the latter is dumb and flies from company. The Contrasted sensorial exhaustion is so considerable that the mind, with with queru- its attention upon the full stretch, has scarcely strength enough to collect the train of ideas on which alone it resolves to dwell; and hence all conversation is irksome, the presence of a friend disquieting, and the deepest so lous anxiety. * Anat. of Melancholy, Part 1. Sect. 11. Subs. x. GEN. II. litude is anxiously sought for. And not unfrequently the discharge of nervous power is so considerable and sudden as to produce a general torpor of the brain; which, if it do cum Moronot happily terminate in quiet sleep, is the inlet of apo- Ungovernplexy. Even in the former case the inirritability of the able heartnervous fibres continues to such an excess that the sufferer ris. ache. Sometimes real evils." Tears and other corpo sighs a good omen, and has no natural evacuation for perhaps several days, feels Description. no hunger, cannot be persuaded to take food, is incapable leads to of sighing and sheds no tears. And hence the appearance and how: apoplexy, of tears and sighing are good omens, and are correctly re- often to garded as such; since they show that the general torpitude is giving way in the organs that most associate with this painful emotion of the mind to a slight return of irritability. As soon as the flow of the sensorial principle is a why. little increased the præcordia struggle with great anxiety, and the heart is overloaded and feels ready to break or burst, whence the name of HEART-ACHE, so appropriately applied to this variety of suffering. Sometimes, also, hysteric flatulency oppresses the respiration, and sions, and, not unfrequently, death itself ensues. last effect Erndtl has given numerous instances*. recovery should take place it is usually long before the judgement re-assumes its proper sway in the mind, and the temporary derangement altogether ceases. convul times con Yet somevulsions enOf this sue and But if In case of At times, in deed, this never returns, and the pitiable sufferer only lives through the shock to endure the severer evil of confirmed insanity of which Shakspeare has given us an admirable copy in the character of King Lear finely imagined to be a result of filial ingratitude. death itself. recovery the mind is long before it resumes its balance : and some times never. Finely exemplified in King Lear. E. atonicum Desperationis. Ungovernspondency. Despair how able de DESPAIR makes a near approach to heart-ache in the overwhelming agony it produces, and its pressing desire of gloom and solitude, but, generally speaking, the feeling is more selfish, and the mind more hurried, and daring. Despair, as it commonly shows itself, is utter hopelessness from mortified pride, blasted expectations, or a sense of distinguishpersonal ruin; heart-ache is either hopelessness from a preceding. sense of some social bereavement, or relative ruin. The Relatio de Morbis anno 1720 Warsaviæ curatis. Dresd. 1730. ed from the |