CLASS HI. 1. 2. 4. OF VOLITION. 313 



cus Antoninus. The maniacal idea is said in some lovers to have 

 been weakened by the action of other very energetic ideas; such 

 as have been occasioned by the death of his favourite child, or by 

 the burning of his house, or by his being shipwrecked. In those 

 cases the violence of the new idea for a while expends so much 

 sensorial power as to prevent the exertion of the maniacal one; 

 and new catenations succeed. On this theory the lover's leap, 

 so celebrated by poets, might affect a cure, if the patient escaped 

 with life. 



The third stage of this disease I suppose is irremediable; when 

 a lover has previously been much encouraged, and at length 

 meets with neglect or disdain; the maniacal idea is so painful 

 as not to be for a moment relievable by the exertions of reverie, 

 but is instantly followed by furious or melancholy insanity; and 

 suicide, or revenge, have frequently been the consequence. As 

 was lately exemplified in Mr. Hackman, who shot Miss Ray in 

 the lobby of the playhouse. So the poet describes the passion of 

 Dido, 



-Moriamur inultae ? 



At moriamur, ait, sic, sic, juvat ire sub umbras! 



The story of Meda?a seems to have been contrived by Ovid, 

 who was a good judge of the subject, to represent the savage 

 madness occasioned by ill-requited love. Thus the poet, 



Earth has no rage like love to hatred turn'd, 

 Nor Hell a fury like a woman scorn'd. 



DRTDEN. 



Hence it appears that though sentimental love does not so 

 frequently arise spontaneously in female bosoms, yet that it is 

 liable to become as violent, when it has been excited by the 

 courtship of the other sex, and though, when it is rejected, after 

 courtship has produced it, it is not always succeeded by such vi- 

 olent effects as those above mentioned; which may be ascribed 

 to the greater modesty and reserve of their education; yet the 

 disappointed passion is liable to prey upon their minds even to 

 the hazard of their lives, of which I have witnessed two in- 

 stances, in both which 'he effects approached to that occasioned 

 by great grief. See Moeror, Class III. 1.2. 10. 



One of these ladies, about 30 years of age, was deserted by an 

 Irish gentleman, who was soon to have married her; she was 

 seized suddenly with a stupor, which, by those who were not 

 acquainted with the cause, was mistaken for a kind of apoplexy; 

 she gradually recovered so as to apply to her usual habits of life, 



VOL. II. S S 



