194 ON THE EFFECTS OF CERTAIN MENTAL 



fails to excite.— Macnishj in his Anatomy of Drunkenness ^ observes, 

 '' The extacies of opium are more entrancing than those of wine ; 

 there is more poetry in its visions, more mental aggrandisement, 

 more range of imagination. Opium, for hours after its use, gives a 

 licence to the imagination, which is almost unbounded. It inspires 

 the mind with a thousand delightful images, lifts the soul from 

 earth, and casts a halo of poetic thought and feeling over the spirits 

 of the most unimaginative. Under its influence, the mind wears no 

 longer that blank, passionless aspect which, even in gifted natures, 

 it is apt to assume : on the contrary, it is clothed with beauty as 

 with a garment, and colours every thought that passes through it 

 with the hues of wonder and romance." 



So intellectual are the imaginations of the opium-eater, that it is 

 necessary a mind should be highly cultivated and exquisitely taste- 

 ful to enjoy, in perfection, the extacies to which it gives rise ; since 

 the very structure of the mind, thus influenced, furnishes the pro- 

 per nourishment on which the imagination feeds. An ear naturally 

 unmusical, or badly cultivated, could take no enjoyment in the most 

 perfect harmony, in the most melodious air, or in the most spirited 

 or heart-stirring chorus, — neither would opium produce this faculty, 

 in the ear or in the mind : but supposing the taste for mu- 

 sic to be acquired, it would heighten its pleasures a thousand- 

 fold. One of the most delightful pictures ever drawn of the 

 pleasures of an imagination heightened by opium, is that given 

 by De Quincey, in his Confessions of an English Opium-eaten 

 it relates to the pleasures imagination derives from music, when 

 the mind is under the influence of opium; and to obtain these, 

 he used to take his customary draught of laudanum-negus on 

 the Tuesday or Saturday, which are the opera-nights, abstaining 

 from it rigidly on the other evenings of the week, in order to 

 increase his enjoyment on these. '' At that time," says he, 

 " Grassini sang at the opera ; and her voice was delightful to me 

 beyond all that I had ever heard. Five shillings admitted one to 

 the gallery, which was subject to far less annoyance than the pit 

 of the theatres ; the orchestra was distinguished, by its sweet and 

 melodious grandeur, from all English orchestras, the composition 

 of which are not, I confess, acceptable to my ear, from the predomi- 



