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Do domineer in privacy.on
No gem, no treasure like to this;
'Tis my delight, my crown, my blifs:
All my joys to this are folly;

Naught fo fweet as MELANCHOLY.M

'Tis my fole plague to be alone;
I am a beaft, a monfter grown;
I fhun all light and company,
I find them now my mifery:

The fcene is chang'd, my joys are gone;
Fears, difcontents, and forrows come
All my griefs to this are jolly;
Naught fo fierce as MELANCHOLY.

I'll not change life with any king;M
I ravifh'd am; can the world bring
More joy than ftill to laugh and fmile,)
And time in pleafant toys beguile?

Do not, O do not, trouble me,
So fweet content I feel and fee:

All my joys to this are folly;
None fo divine as MELANCHOLY.

I'll change my ftate with any wretch,
Thou can'ft from gaol or dunghill fetch:
My pain's paft cure, another hell:

I cannot in this torment dwell.
Now defperate, I hate my life;
And feek a halter or a knife:

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But the melancholy of which we intend to treat in the following pages, is not merely the tranfitory dejection of Spirits above-mentioned, but a permanent and habitual diforder of the intellect, morbus fonticus aut chronicus; a noifome, chronic, or continuate disease; a fettled humour, not errant, but fixed and grown into an inveterate habit. It is, in fhort, that

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Whose droffy thoughts drying the feeble brain,
Corrupts the fenfe, deludes the intellect,
And in the foul's fair table falsely graves

Whole fquadrons of fantastical chimeras."

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14 DEFINITION, AFFECTION, MATTER,

CHAPTER THE SECOND.

THE DEFINITION, AFFECTION, MATTER,

AND SPECIES OF MELANCHOLY.

MELAN

ELANCHOLY derives its name from the Greek word Mehavxoria, QUASI, Μελανχολία, MEλavaxon, which fignifies that black choler which corrodes the conftitution of the patient during the prevalency of the disease. The defcriptions, notations, and definitions which are given of it, are many and various; and it is even doubted whether it be a caufe or an effect; an original disorder, or only a symptom of some other complaint.

Fracaftorius, in his fecond book "of Intellect," calls those melancholy "whom abundance of "that fame depraved humour of black choler has "fo misaffected, that they become mad, and "doat in most things, or in all belonging to "election, will, or other manifeft operations "of the understanding :" and others, as Galen,* Melanelius,

Claudius Galenus was born at Pergamus in the year of our Lord 131. His father was a celebrated architect, and fpared no pains in the education of his fon; but medicine was his favourite

Atudy;

Melanelius, Ruffus*, Ætius,† Hercules de Saxonia, Fufchius, Arnoldus Breviarus, § Guianerius, || Paulus, ¶ Halyabbas, Aretæus, ** Montanus, ++ and other celebrated writers upon this

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fubject, describe it to be "a bad and peevish « disease,

study; and he attained so profound a knowledge of this art, that his contemporaries attributed his fuccefs to the power of magic; but Nature and the works of Hippocrates were his best inftructors. After having gained great reputation under the reigns of the Antonines, Marcus Aurelius, and other Emperors, he died in the place of his nativity in the year 210.

*Ruffus was a phyfician at Ephesus, and attained a high degree of reputation under the Emperor Trajan. His works, which are frequently cited by Suidas, were published at London in 1726, in quarto.

† Ætius lived very near the end of the fifth or in the beginning of the fixth century.

Leonard Tufch, or Fufchius, was born at Wembdingen, in Bavaria, in 1051, and died in 1566.

§ Arnold of Villeneuve, a physician of the thirteenth century.

John Guianerius was born at Anternach in the year 1487, and was afterwards appointed physician to Francis the First. He died in the year 1574.

Francis Paul, a physician of the academies of Montpellier and Marseilles, was born at St. Chamas in Provence, and died in 177, at the age of forty-three years.

** Arètæus of Cappadocia, a Grecian physician, of the sect of Pneumaticks, lived under Julius Cæfar or Trajan.

++ John Baptift Montanus, of Verona, was born in the year 1498, and died on the 6th of May, 1551. He was esteemed a fecond Galen, and enjoyed the double advantage of being the first poet and the first physician of his age.

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16 DEFINITION, AFFECTION, MATTER, "disease, which makes men degenerate into. "beasts;"-" a privation or infection of the "middle cell of the head;"-" a depravation of "the principal function by means of black cho"ler;"-" a commotion of the mind, or per"petual anguifh of the foul, faftened on one "thing, without an ague or fever; having for "its ordinary companion fear and sadness, with"out any apparent occafion." It is faid to be a dotage, to fhew that some one principal faculty, as the imagination, or the reason, is corrupted, as it is with all melancholy perfons: it is faid to be an anguish of the principal parts of the mind, with a view to diftinguifh it from cramp, palfy, and such diseases as affect the outward fense and motion of the body: it is said to be a depravation of the principal functions, in order to distinguish it from fatuity and madness, in which those functions are rather abolished than depraved: it is faid to be unaccompanied by ague or fever, because the humour is most part cold, dry, and contrary to putrefaction; and which distinguishes it from those disorders which are called phrenfies: and it is faid to be attended with vain fears and groundlefs forrows, in order to differ it from madness, and from the effects of the ordinary passions of fear and forrow, which are the true characteristics and infeparable companions of most, though not of all, melancholy men; for there are fome who can freely

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