AND BODILY STATES UPON THE IMAGINATION. 69 



predominant feeling or idea, no leading affection, no cherished sor- 

 row : all is desultory, wandering, and terrific. A General, rendered 

 insane, threatened the sun-beams which offended him with the ven- 

 geance of his whole army. The slightest bodily pain, the minutest 

 physical evil, contradiction, or mistaken moral perception, excite a 

 train of imaginary feelings of the most violent character. I shall 

 illustrate the imaginations of the maniac from the Lear of Shak- 

 speare, and the Orestes of Euripides. The first scene in which 

 Lear is introduced dividing the kingdom with his daughters, per- 

 fectly illustrates that impetuosity of character, that morbid feeling, 

 which is not satisfied without the most hyperbolical and exaggerated 

 expressions of attachment. The plain and modest declaration of 

 filial affection on the part of Cordelia, does not satisfy Lear ; but he 

 breaks forth into a declamation of the most violent character, and 

 for a word mis-spoke or wrongly taken, casts the child of his love 

 portionless upon the world : 



" Let it be so. — Thy truth then be thy dower : 



For, by the sacred radiance of the sun ; 



The mysteries of Hecate, and the night ; 



By all the operations of the orbs, 



From whom we do exist, and cease to be ; 



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. The barbarous Scythian, 



Or he that makes his generation messes 



To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom 



Be as well neighbour'd, pitied, and reliev'd, 



As thou, my sometime daughter." 



Speeches of this character, shewing the predisposition to mania 

 in Lear, might be multiplied to almost any extent from the earlier 

 scenes of this magnificent play, especially his curse of Goneril, for 

 refusing to entertain his full complement of knights.* On Lear's 



* These dreadful explosions of rage would at once indicate the predispo- 

 sition to mania, even if they were elicited by some provocation proportionate 

 to their violence ; but when we see them called forth from trifling causes, 

 we cannot fail at once to be struck with a peculiar disposition of mind ap- 

 proaching to ungovernable fury : as thus — 



" You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames 

 Into her scornful eyes ! Infect her beauty, 

 You fen-suck'd fogs, drawn by the powerful sun, 

 To fall and blast her pride ! 



