428 



ON TEMPERAMENTS, 



full of suspicion. The species and varieties afforded by this genus are almost 

 innumerable, for the causes are peculiarly diversified. Hereditary disease, 

 long-continued sorrow, incessant study, habitual gluttony, the abuse of plea- 

 sures of various kinds, and a thousand other circumstances, may equally 

 become sources of this distressing condition, under some shape or other. 

 And perhaps Le Clerc is correct in regarding it, in his Natural History of 

 Man, as in every instance a morbid affection, rather than a natural and primi- 

 tive constitution. 



The character of Tiberius, of Louis XI., and of Pygmalion, as drawn by 

 the nice hand of Fenelon in his Telemachus, give striking elucidations of 

 this temperament in its moral bearings. M. Richerand has also pointed out 

 examples in Torquato Tasso, Pascal, Gilbert, and Zimmermann ; but perhaps 

 the most perfect picture that has been furnished to the world is to be found in 

 the life of the celebrated Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 



IV. Let us pass on to the fourth temperament — the phlegmatic, lymphatic, 

 piTuiTous, or WATERY, for the terms are all synonymous, and by all these terms 

 it has been denominated. The proportion of fluids is here too considerable 

 for that of the solids, or, in other words, the excernent system which secretes 

 them from the general mass of the blood is in peculiar "activity ; and the re- 

 sult is, that the body obtains an increased bulk from the repletion of the cel- 

 lular texture. The fleshy parts are soft; the skin fair; the hair flaxen or 

 sandy; the pulse weak and slow; the figure plump, but without expression; 

 all the vital actions more or less languid; the memory little tenacious, and 

 the attention wavering ; there is an insurmountable desire of indolence, and 

 aversion to both mental and corporeal exercise. 



It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that, among the illustrious lives of 

 Plutarch, we do not meet with an individual of this character. They are, for 

 the most part, a good-natured group, not formed for the transaction of public 

 affairs, who have never disturbed the earth by their negotiations or their con- 

 quests, and are rather to be sought for in the bosom of private life than at the 

 helm of states. The emperor Theodosius may, perhaps, be offered as an ex- 

 ample in earlier times; and in our own day the deposed Charles IV. of Spain, 

 who resigned himself altogether into the hands of the infamous Godoy, sur- 

 named Prince of the Peace ; Augustus, king of Saxony, who resigned himself 

 equally into the hands of Buonaparte ; and Ferdinand of Sicily, who, in lucky 

 hour, but of too short duration, at length surrendered the government of his 

 people to our own country. 



V. The last temperament I have noticed is the nervous or irritable, as it 

 has been sometimes, but incorrectly, denominated. In this constitution the 

 sentient system, or that susceptible to external impressions, is predominant 

 over all the rest. Like the melancholic, it is seldom natural or primitive, but 

 morbid and secondary, acquired by a sedentary life, reiterated pleasures, 

 romantic ideas excited by a long train of novel or other fictitious and elevated 

 histories ; and peculiarly distinguished by promptitude but fickleness of de- 

 termination, vivacity of sensations, small, soft, and wasted muscles, and 

 generally, though not always, a slender form. The diseases chiefly incident 

 to it are hysterical and other convulsive affections. 



Let us close with two brief remarks upon the general survey before us. 

 The first is, that these temperaments or generic constitutions are perpetually 

 running into each other ; and, consequently, that not one of them, perhaps, is 

 to be found in a state of full perfection in any individual. Strictly speaking, 

 Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox belonged equally in the main to the second of them : 

 there was the same ardour, genius, and comprehensive judgment in both; but 

 the former had the bilious temperament, with a considerable tendency to the 

 sanguineous ; and hence, with more irritability, had more self-confidence, 

 audacity, and sanguine expectation : the latter, while possessing the same 

 general or bilious temperament, was at the same time more strongly inclined 

 to the lymphatic ; and hence his increased corporeal bulk ; and, with less bold 

 and ardent expectation, he possessed one of the sweetest and most benevo- 

 lent dispositions to be met with in the history of the world. The first was 



