70 ON THE EFFECTS OF CERTAIN MENTAL 



first coming to the knowledge of the ingratitude of Regan, Shak- 

 speare again displays his intimate knowledge, not only of the work- 

 ings of the human passions, but of those bodily affections with 

 which they are occasionally attended. Thus : 



" O ! how this mother swells up tow'rd my heart ! 

 Hysterica passio ! down, thou climbing sorrow ! 

 Thy element 's below !" 



I bring forward a case to illustrate the truth of this description 

 of the poet's: — A person was subject to paroxysms of insanity, of 

 which the first symptoms were heat in the region of the stomach, 

 which was felt to ascend progressively to the chest, neck, and face. 

 To this succeeded a flushed countenance ; and no sooner was the 

 head invaded, than he was seized with an uncontrollable propensi- 

 ty to commit deeds of violence and bloodshed. 



The mind of the person predisposed to mania, is seldom complete- 

 ly disorganized without the occurrence of some strong mental im- 

 pression addressed immediately to itself — as inordinate grief for the 

 loss of friends or property, disappointed ambition, remorse, woe, 

 " soul-stifling fear," or " heart-sickening shame." The approach 

 of the attack is sensible to many, and is finely described by Lear : 



" My wits begin to turn — 

 Come on, my boy. How dost, boy ? art cold ? 

 I'm cold myself. Where is the straw, my fellow ? 

 The art of our necessities is strange 

 That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel. 

 Poor fool and knave, I've one string in my heart 

 That's sorrow yet for thee." 



The maniac lives an isolated being in the moral and physical 

 world which surrounds him. The ideas and images which his ima- 

 gination forms, are without order or connection, continually repro- 

 duced by new impressions, and at once fading from the memory ; 

 and like the impression of a seal upon the wave, leaving no trace 

 behind them. He is incapable of distinguishing the properties or 

 nature of things ; but, carried away by ideas which are produced 

 from memory, he confounds time and place, fancies himself in dis- 

 tant countries, and takes the greatest strangers for his most intimate 

 friends : he creates the most absurd pictures, holds the most ridicu- 

 lous conversations, and unites in one grand monument of folly, the 

 sublime, the absurd, the monstrous, the horrible, and the pathetic. 

 The equilibrium between actual and present perception, and the 

 ideas which memory furnishes, is destroyed ; and the activity of the 



