neither to receive nor to give enjoyment; and that meantime (by the same kind providence of nature against worse consequences) they do suffer and sympathize greatly on occasion, often to a far greater degree than the author chooses to think. The sick neighbor feeling for the dying man endures but half the anguish of many (I do not say of all) who are here called "snivellers round a bed," and who would sometimes gladly die instead of the sufferer? What? Have not millions of lives been thrown away for less things than love; and are we to be told by a loveless misanthrope, girding his own friends, that affection never grieves for a death beyond a "month" or a 66 day?" Nonsense. I mourn with, and admire Swift, who was a great man, notwithstanding what was little in him; but (wit excepted) he fell to the level of the vulgar when he "sunk in the spleen." Yet how handsome the opportunity he takes of complimenting Pope and others at his own expense, and how pleasantly it tells both against him and for him! 7 Refin'd it first, and show'd its use.-A bold claim, after Butler and all the other wits and poets who excelled in it! and, indeed, quite unfounded. 12 GREEN. BORN, 1696-died, 1737. THE author of the Spleen, a poem admired by Pope, and quoted by Johnson, was a clerk in the custom-house, and had been bred a quaker. He was subject to low spirits, and warded them off by wit and good sense. Something of the quaker may be ob servable in the stiffness of his versification, and its excessive endeavors to be succinct. His style has also the fault of being occasionally obscure; and his wit is sometimes more labored than finished. But all that he says is worth attending to. His thoughts are the result of his own feeling and experience; his opinions rational and cheerful, if not very lofty; his warnings against meddling with superhuman mysteries admirable; and he is remarkable for the brevity and originality of his similes. He is of the school of Butler; and it may be affirmed of him as a rare honor, that no man since Butler has put so much wit and reflection into the same compass of lines. There is an edition of Green's poems by Dr. Aikin, which deserves to be the companion of all who suffer as the author did, and who have sense enough to wish to relieve their sufferings by the like exercise of their reason. In printing the following extracts I have not adopted the asterisks commonly employed for the purpose of implying omission. I always use them unwillingly, on account of the fragmentary air they give to the passages; and the paragraphs closed up so well together in the present instance, that I was tempted to waive them. But the circumstance is mentioned in order to prevent a false conclusion. REMEDIES FOR THE SPLEEN.' To cure the mind's wrong bias, spleen, Some recommend the bowling-green; Some hilly walks: all, exercise ; Fling but a stone, the giant dies. Laugh and be well. Monkeys have been Extreme good doctors for the spleen ; And kittens, if the humor hit, Have harlequin'd away the fit. If spleen fogs rise at close of day, In rainy days keep double guard, To enterprise a work of wit, I dress my face with studious looks, And on the drowning world remark; Or with the merry fellows quaff, Or drink a joco-serious cup With souls who've took their freedom up; And let my mind, beguil'd by talk, In Epicurus' garden walk, Who thought it heav'n to be serene ; Pain, hell; and purgatory, spleen. Sometimes I dress, with women sit, Permit, ye fair, your idol-form, We gaze, and see the smiling loves, And raptur'd fix in such a face Love's mercy-seat and throne of grace. By heads which are ador'd while on.2 Such thoughts as love the gloom of night, I close examine by the light; For who, though brib'd by gain to lie, That superstition mayn't create, Thus, then, I steer my bark, and sail My crew of passions all submit. 'The disorder here called the Spleen, was of old called Melancholy, or Hypochondria; then it became Vapors or the Hyp, then the Spleen, then the Nerves or Low Spirits. The designa |