ries which prevail in mania, would be an endless and an useless task, indeed there is no reason to doubt that they all spring from one and the same disease. Even the terms mania and melancholia, raise a distinction without creating a difference. There are maniacs whose lives are divided between furious and melancholic paroxysms, who under both forms retain the same set of ideas;-as however Crighton has given as four species,

Mania furibunda,

Melancholia,

Mania Mitis,

and

Demonomania,

those varieties will be adopted in the following

Essays.

MANIA FURIBUNDA, OR RAGING MADNESS.

LEAR.

The word madness, is originally gothic, and meant anger, rage. Mod. (mod.)-Haslam.

Yet sawe I modnesse laghyng in his rage.

Chaucer.

This variety is displayed in the character of Lear. A temper, naturally irritable and impatient of contradiction,-the habit of giving unrestrained indulgence to its caprices, and the fractiousness and imbecility of age, sufficiently prepared Lear on the advent of disaster for a paroxysm of insanity.

Lear.

Now our joy,
Although the last, not least: Speak.

Cordelia. Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty
According to my bond; nor more, nor less.

Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,

To love my father all.

Lear. So young and so untender?

Cordelia.

So young, my Lord, and true.

Lear. Let it be so, thy truth then be thy dower;

E

Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity and property of blood;

And, as a stranger to my heart and me,
Hold thee from this for ever.

Kent.

Good, my liege.

Lear.

Peace, Kent,

Step not between the dragon and his wrath.

The

When the authority of Lear is afterwards questioned by his daughter Goneril, he is so surprised, that he doubts of his personal identity. approximations to insanity are introduced with great skill-they have a regular succession, and augment.

This is not Lear.

Does Lear talk thus? Speak thus? Where are his eyes? The succeeding speech of Goneril calls forth the intemperance of his rage:

And afterwards:

Darkness and devils.

Detested kite, thou liest.

At length comes his horrible denunciation, which is conceived in the sublimity of terrific grandeur, and conveyed in language admirably descriptive of the array of thought.

Hear, Nature! hear, dear Goddess, hear!
Suspend thy purpose if thou didst intend

To make this creature fruitful!

Into her womb convey sterility!
Dry up in her the organs of increase,

That from her derogate body never spring
A babe to honour her. If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen; that it may live
And be a thwart disnatured torment to her!
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth;
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks;
Turn all her mother's pains and benefits
To laughter and contempt-that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child.

When he calmly considers the indignities that have been heaped upon him, and reverts to the ingratitude of his two daughters, reflection serves only to increase his tortures, and he feels an apprehension of supervening insanity:

Oh! let me not be mad-not mad, sweet Heaven!
Keep me in temper-I would not be mad.

In many states of mental affliction, this presentiment is not uncommon. The conflict of passions produces palpitations and anxieties about the region of the heart; the blood ascends in flushes, and appears to scald the brain in its passage, and a crowded and increased assemblage of ideas produce confusion in the mind. Of these precursors, Lear experienced many intimations, and he exerts himself to suppress the kindling of his rage:

Oh! how this mother swells up tow'rds my heart,
Hysterica passio! Down, thou climbing sorrow,
Thy element's below.

But at last he is goaded to fury by the contu

melious insults of his two unnatural children, and perceives his impending distraction:

O fool, I shall go mad.

When Goneril and Regan have barred him out, he alternately braves the storm with violent imprecations, and conciliates it with a wounded spirit. Blow! winds, and crack your cheeks.

Again he endeavours to restrain the bursting torrent of his passion:

No! I will be the pattern of all patience,

I will say nothing.

And concludes a speech of exquisite beauty with a temperate and consoling reflection:

I am a man

More sinn'd against than sinning.

The actual perversion of his mind is now fast approaching; the alarm for the continuance of reason increases; his restraints are less effectually imposed. Some internal sensations whisper that the mental eclipse is commencing:

My wits begin to turn.

Lear next becomes aware that he sustains privations with extraordinary nerve, and that cold and hunger do not exert their usual influence on his frame. This insensibility to external impressions is a marked symptom of approaching and existing derangement, and it is physiologically accounted for by the inimitable author: