192 ON THE EFFECTS OP CERTAIN MENTAL 



sung, in glowing strains, the pleasures of wine — not its physical and 

 animal pleasures, but the mental delights springing from its effects 

 upon heated and poetic fancy — 



" Which bathes the drooping spirits in delight, 

 Beyond the bliss of dreams." 



Such are the pleasures imagination derives from intoxication. 

 Let us reverse the picture, and behold its pains. And now me- 

 lancholy, in her " robe of darkest grain," fills the disordered fancy 

 with images of a ten-fold deeper gloom. When the visions of plea- 

 sure begin to fade, ideas of the most distressing and painful character 

 rise to occupy their place. The imagination is now a perfect ty- 

 rant ; she shews her slave every species of imaginary evil, and accu- 

 mulates all in one vortex upon his devoted head. The mind be- 

 comes a chaos of all that is dark, dreadful, and desponding. Phan- 

 toms, grotesque and horrible, rise and gibber at the unfortunate 

 being ; and the conflict of contending fancies lashes him into a fit 

 of excitation bordering on mania, or presses him down with the feel- 

 ings of blank despair. 



" His cares return 

 With ten-fold rage ; 

 And such a dim delirium, such a dream 

 Involves him, such a dastardly despair 

 Unmans his soul, as madd'ning Pentheus felt 

 When, baited round Cithseron's cruel sides, 

 He saw two suns and double Thebes ascend." 



These efiects are not very commonly the result of the habitual 

 or excessive use of wine ; but more than one instance has fallen un- 

 der my own observation where it has produced visions of delight 

 and forebodings of evil, equally vivid with those I have endeavoured 

 to describe. 



I now pass to the consideration of the influence of opium upon 

 the imagination, and the modifications effected by it in the exercise 

 of this class of mental operations. According to De Quincey, who 

 styles himself the alpha and omega on all points connected with the 

 use of opium ; " its effects upon the human constitution differ mate- 

 rially from those produced by wine. Wine disorders the mental fa- 



