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164

THE CONSEQUENCES

CHAPTER THE FOURTH.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF MELANCHOLY.

THE

HE CONSEQUENCES which the disease of melancholy produces, are the symptoms and prognoftics, or, in other terms, the effects which follow from the causes already described. Parrhafius, the celebrated Grecian painter, purchased, among thofe Olynthian captives which Philip of Macedon brought home to fell, a strong, athletic, but extreme old man, and put him to the most violent agonies that the feverest tortures could inflict, in order, by the writhings and contortions of his body, the better to express the pains and paffions of THE PROMETHEUS which he was then about to paint: but the effects and confequences of a melancholy habit are so strongly delineated upon both the body and the mind, that no fuch ingenious, but inhuman, cruelty is neceffary to describe the symptoms of this torturing disease. The herb tortocolla is faid to produce the different effects of laughing, crying, fleeping, dancing, finging, howling, and drinking, on different constitutions; and in like manner the various causes which produce melancho

ly,

ly, work in different habits innumerable and opposite symptoms; but various and complicated as they are, they may be aptly described in fuch as affect THE BODY, and such as affect THE MIND.

The confequences of this disease, upon the body, are leannefs, a withered fkin, hollow eyes, a wrinkled forehead, a dejected visage, harsh features, cholicy complaints, eructations, finging in the ears, twinkling of the eyes, vertigo in the head, a palpitation of the heart, a faultering speech, laughing, grinning, fleering, murmuring, blushing, trembling, foliloquy, sobbing, fwooning, a depraved and indifferent appetite, bad digeftion, a flow and timid pulfe, except it be of the carotides, which is very ftrong; varying, as Struthius clearly proves, according to the strength and violence of the difeafe; but the principal confequences is an eternal restleffness, watching, and indifpofition to fleep. Trincavelius mentions an inftance of a melancholy man, who never closed his eyes for fifty days: The mother of Hercules de Saxonia, who laboured for many years under this difeafe, declared moft folemnly, that, during the period of seven months, she was a total stranger to the bleffings of repofe: and Skenkius produces inftances of patients who have never flept for two years; and yet no visible injury from fo long a privation of reft.

received

Tir'd

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THE CONSEQUENCES

Tir'd Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!
He, like the world, his ready vifit pays
Where fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes;
Swift on his downy pinions flies from woe,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.

The confequences of this disease on the mind, are fear, forrow, fufpicion, jealousy, inconftancy, petulancy, bafhfulness, a love of folitude, and a hatred of life.

FEAR is almoft the firft, and certainly the moft general, confequence of a melancholy dif pofition; but the apprehenfions it excites are always without any real caufe, or apparent foundation. Like an unftaunched hound, the mind runs away with a wrong fcent, without perceiving itself to be at fault; as in those cases where the patients conceive the canopy of heaven is falling upon their heads; that their bodies are frames of glass about to receive a fracture; that the earth is about to fink under their feet; that they are kings, cardinals, perfons appointed to fave the world, and many other of the like nature, more or less extravagant, in proportion to the ftrength and description of the disease.

SORROW, a causeless forrow, is another infeparable companion of melancholy. The unhappy

happy fufferers, penfive, weeping, and dejected, look as if they had newly come from the Trophonian cave; or as if the vulture which is faid to have preyed inceffantly on the vitals of Titius, was continually gnawing at their hearts. Terrible dreams disturb their fhort repofe; and no fooner are their eyes open, than the heaviest fighs efcape from their lips. Smiles, indeed, and fits of laughter, will fometimes intervene; but they only fink from their short-lived mirth into deeper sadness and despondency.

SUSPICION and JEALOUSY are among the mental aberrations of this disease. A melancholy perfon always conceives himself neglected, and applies every whifper or jeft which he happens to hear to his own disadvantage; misconstrues every word that is uttered; puts the worst interpretation on all that is faid; and conceives all around him are forming plans to circumvent and cover him with difgrace. Montanus mentions the cafe of a melancholy Jew, who was fo wafpifh and suspicious, that no man, however cautious, could continue inoffenfively in his company and these unhappy conceits generally ftrike deep root into their disordered minds.

INCONSTANCY

[graphic]

restless, refolute and wavering, obftinate a yielding, prodigal and covetous, conftant a fickle, pleafed and difpleafed, animated and jected,

"From their coarse mixture of terreftrial parts, "Defire and fear by turns poffess their hearts, "And grief and joy; nor can the inconftant min "In the dark dungeon of Disease confin'd, "Affert its native fkies."

A PASSIONATE DISPOSITION is also a freque confequence of melancholy, Quicquid volunt val volunt; whatever melancholy perfons defire, the expect immediately to obtain ; and the leaft de lay or difappointment renders them auftere, furly dull and mad. To this obfervation, however, ther are many exceptions; for melancholy frequentl engenders the fineft conceits, gives a deep reac and excellent apprehenfion to the mind, and ren ders it judicious, wife, and witty; but the thoughts it engenders are, in general, antic and phantaftical, Velut ægri fomnia, vane finguntur fpecies, like a fick man's dreams.

BASHFULNESS is another confequence of a melancholy difpofition, which is the reafon why perfons thus afflicted feldom vifit any, except

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