FRAGMENT. 



203 



dinner, as they were in public or in private. Books, 

 even thofe which are moll eagerly cried up, 

 abound with contradidions. Thus, I was made 

 fenfible, that the difeafes of the mind were no lefs 

 reduced to fyfteLnatic methods of cure, than thofe 

 of the body, and that I had afted very impru- 

 dently, in adding the unikilfulnefs of the phyficians 

 to my own infirmities, as there are more patients, 

 of every defcription, killed by remedies than by 

 difeafes. 



While all this was going on, my calamities had 

 not yet attained their final period. The ingrati- 

 tude of men, of whom 1 had deferved better 

 things ; unexpedled family mortifications ; the to- 

 tal annihilation of my flender patrimony, fcattered 

 abroad to the four winds of Heaven, in enterprizes 

 undertaken for the fervice of my Country ; the 

 debts under which I lay oppreffed, by engage- 

 ments of this kind ; all my hopes of fortune blafted 

 thefe combined calamities, made dreadful in- 

 roads at once upon my health and my reafon. I 

 was attacked by a malady to which I had hitherto 

 been a (Iranger. Fires, fimilar to thofe of light- 

 ning, affefted the organs of vifion. Every ohjedl 

 prefented itfelf to me double, and in motion. Like 

 ŒdipuSy I faw two Suns. My heart was not lefs 

 dillurbed than my head. In the fined day of Sum- 

 mer, I could not crofs the Seine, in a boar, with- 

 out 



