AND BODILY STATES UPON THE IMAGINATION. G.3 



* Who makes the bridal bed ? 

 Birdie, say truly ;* 



' The grey-headed sexton, 

 That delves the grave truly. 



' The glow-worm o'er gravestone, 



Shall light there steady ; 



The owl, from the steeple, sing 



* Welcome, proud lady !' " 



Such are the examples I have chosen to illustrate the Imagina- 

 tions of that form of mental derangement termed mania mitis, ame- 

 nomania, or gay melancholy. 



The next species of morbid imagination constituting insanity 

 which I shall notice is that commonly termed tristimania, tedium 

 vitce, or sad melancholy. It is not necessary for me here to notice 

 the propriety or impropriety of these terms, or to what particular 

 form of mental derangement they should or should not be applied. 

 It is sufficient to state that they here exclusively refer to that form 

 of disease in which the ideas are clothed in a shade of the deepest 

 gloom ; reasoning after a fashion, it is true, upon the nature and 

 moral aspect of events, but shadowing them all with the mists of a 

 distempered fancy. These people look always on the dark side of 

 things. To them the world has no sunshine, no pleasure ; their 

 mind is a crucible of peculiar construction, that extracts nothing 

 but misery and bitterness from whatever materials it may analyze. 

 All is of 



" Blackest midnight born, 



In Stygian cave forlorn ; — 



Mid'st horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy." 



This species of insanity is dependent alogether upon the natural 

 constitution of the mind. In many instances it is merely a morbid 

 exaltation of the usual mental phenomena. The sane and the in- 

 sane mind are constituted of the same materials, and after the same 

 type ; and it is a general exaltation of its functions, or a derange- 

 ment in the mode or reciprocity of their actions, which produces the 

 insane state. I shall illustrate the nature of this affection from the 

 character of Hamlet, and I have many reasons for doing so. It is 

 the completest history of melancholy madness and the state of mind 

 which precedes it that has ever been given. " Its first symptoms, 

 and their progression to, and ultimate termination in, confirmed 

 insanity, are illustrated with singular exactness ; and it is a remark- 



