fair hands shall minister to his necessities, recourse to what, by a rather curious anticiand fairy forms hover about, slaves to his pation, he calls "magnetical cures " or in bidding. But let him get up in the morn- more plain language, "diabolical means ing, sound in wind and limb to all appear--that is, spells, charms, incantations, and ance, with nothing particular to complain of, the like. Sorcerers, he says, are common only feeling as if he had got the whole world enough in every village" and they have upon his shoulders, like Atlas, and was on commonly St. Catherine's wheel printed in the point of breaking down under it-heavy the roof of their mouth, or in some other as if with the shadow of some unknown ca- part about them "-a trade-mark which it lamity-with all the little troubles of life may be useful thus to note for the protecmagnified in his mental focus, like those tion of the ingenuous public who attend hideous water-monsters in the hydro-oxygen modern séances, and by which we recommicroscope-" agelastos, mastus, cogitabun- mend them to make a point of testing the dus-looking as if he had newly come forth genuine article-taking care not to get their of Trophonius' den "-(do we not know the fingers bitten. Paracelsus will have it that symptoms as well as old Burton ?)-and see no one shall take it in hand to deal with how much pity or respect such an unhappy melancholy, who is not at once a magisufferer is likely to meet with from this pres-cian, a chymist, a philosopher, and an asent hard-hearted generation. Democritus trologer." Burton is cautious as to giving had surely experienced the tender sympa- any decided opinion of his own as to the thies of some of his Christchurch friends possibility of such means of cure, but he when he wrote as follows:

holds them to be plainly unlawful. He admits, nevertheless, that there is a supernatural Vis medicatrix, to which we may lawfully apply, and of which all "vertue of stones, herbs, plants, seeds, etc.,” are but "intermediate ministers ;" and he weaves very gracefully together, in his own peculiar style, the acknowledgment of the heathen poet-" A Jove principium" the moral contained in the fable of Hercules and the wagoner, and the golden precept which was so fully recognized by the good physicians of old-Galen, Crato, Lælius, and their followers-" Sine oratione et invocatione DEI nihil facias."

"It is an ordinary thing for such as are sound, to laugh at this dejected pusillanimity, and those other symptoms of melancholy, to make themselves merry with them, and to wonder at such, as toyes and trifles which may be resisted and withstood if they will themselves; but let him that so wonders, consider with himself, that if a man should tell him on a sudden that some of his especial friends were dead, could he choose but grieve? or set him upon a steep rock, where he should be in danger to be precipitated, could he be secure? Yea, but you infer that such men have a just cause to grieve, a true object of fear: so have melancholy men an inward cause, a perpetual fume and darkness, causing grief, fear, sus-be picion, which they carry with them-an object which cannot be removed, but sticks as close, and is as inseparable, as a shadow to a body; and who can expel or overrun his shadow? Remove heat of the liver, a cold stomach, weak spleen-take away the cause," Si tibi deficiant medici, medici tibi fiant and then bid them not grieve nor fear, or be heavy, dull, lumpish: otherwise counsel can do little good: you may as well bid him that is sick of an ague not be dry, or him that is wounded not to feel pain."

The sovereign cures for melancholy are to sought in accordance with what we have seen of its nature and its causes. Greater

than all wizards, astrologers or physicians are the "three Salernitan doctors-Dr. Merryman, Dr. Diet, and Dr. Quiet "

Hæc tria, mens læta, requies, moderata dieta."*

This was one of the celebrated maxims of the School of Salerno, which, under the Lombard princes, rose to the highest renown throughout Europe. It was there that the Arabian chemists and physicians taught the secrets of the East. Paris for

So much for the nature and the causes of melancholy; the second part of our treatise concerns its cure. A hard matter, the author tells us, but not impossible. He no*See Regimen Sanitatis Salerni; or the School tices some proposed remedies only to reject of Salerne, etc. 4to. London: 1649. This edition has a very indifferent translation of the Latin maxthem. He advises-and we trust our pres-ims into English verse. Burton appears to have ent readers will agree with him-not to have quoted from a Latin prose version.

"The Choaspis in Persia was preferred by the Persian kings before wine itself." Something depends, no doubt, on the quality of the Persian wine; we have tasted homemade British, to which any water-even "still, white, and thick, like that of Nilus in Egypt "-would have been preferable.

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sciences, Bonn for law, Orleans for successful writers, Salerno for medicine, -is the distribution of Thomas Aquinas. The maxims of this school were condensed into a convenient set of aphorisms in rhymed Latin verse of the twelfth century, and were translated into various languages. On the precept quoted above, Burton rests as the Good air, again, is an essential point in foundation of all sound treatment of this the case. Upon this Burton makes a long terrible disease. "Make a melancholy man and amusing digression, carrying his reader fat," saith Rhasis, " and thou hast finished all round the habitable globe in search of it, the cure." Let him that is vexed with this where we shall not follow him. A good sitNemesis of the body, look well to his diet uation should be chosen for a house, bearabove all things. And in this, says Bur- ing in mind that "the best soile commonly ton very sensibly, "I conclude our own ex- yields the worst aire." "A dry sandy spot perience is the best physician-let every -"rather hilly than plain"—"a cotswold man observe and be a law unto himself." country "-with a pleasant prospect, are what He reminds us of the Emperor Tiberius' he would recommend; the last alone “will remark, which we have since freely trans- ease melancholy, as Gomesius contends." lated into a proverb, that " a man after thirty "Our country gentlemen" are too apt, in is either a fool or a physician." He approves his mind, to "build in bottoms, or near of the Roman custom of taking the chief woods." Some, indeed, suppose that a meal at the close of the day; a point of thick, foggy air helps the memory; and medical discipline in which our physicians (we fear the compliment is rather malicious of the last generation made a perverse step to the sister university) "Camden commends backwards, tormenting the unhappy dyspep- the site of Cambridge because it is so near tic with raw mutton-chops at one o'clock. the fens." But of all remedies, change of On the other hand, Burton and his learned air is that which works wonders. "No betauthorities forbid a variety of dishes, which ter physic for a melancholy man than change modern experience more reasonably con- of air and variety of places, to travel abroad cludes, under limitations, to be conducive to and see fashions." It is no new fancy of our easy digestion; much more so than the cut- fashionable physicians to order their patients, and-come-again at what our ancestors used who are suffering from the complications of to call "wholesome roast and boiled." In nervousness or indigestion, to the sea or to nothing did the national obstinacy and prej- the German baths; their predecessors in the udice of Englishmen maintain its ground dark ages appear to have attached quite as longer against reason and conviction, than much weight to such prescriptions. No need in the deeply seated belief in the virtues of to quote Rhasis, Montaltus, Celsus, etc.; let the national cookery. No doubt our hered- one testimony from "that great doctor," itary jealousy of France had much to do Lælius a Fonte Eugubinus, stand for all; he with it. notes at the end of several of his recorded consultations, and doubtless with perfect truth-" Many other things helped; but change of air was that which wrought the cure, and did most good."

"Water," says Burton, "should be good." "Rain-water is purest; " next in merit is "that which riseth in the east and runneth eastward, from flinty, chalky, gravelly ground." We confess to a very limited experience of water as a beverage, except under the modifications admitted by our temperance poet in June last; * certainly, if we drank it, we should like it good. There used to be some in Burton's time," in Turkie, Persia, India (as our merchants observe), as good as our beer; " but that, we are afraid has been drunk out long since. *Blackwood's Magazine, vol. lxxxix. p. 749.

Exercise, both of body and mind, is almost of equal virtue in the curative process. All nature, says the philosopher, delights in exercise. "The heavens themselves run continually round; the sun riseth and setteth; the moon increaseth and decreaseth; stars and planets keep their constant mo. tions; the air is still tossed by the winds; the waters ebb and flow, to their conservation no doubt, to teach us that we should

which he can see what is going on under another horizon. The temptation held out to human curiosity in this last invention would seem to be almost irresistible.

Sleep, in the next place, should be attended to; Paracelsus holds it to be "the chiefest thing in all physic." "Some cannot sleep for witches and fascinations; " it may be so with some of our present readers; it may possibly have been so with ourselves, when we were "callidus juventa ; " but those days are past. The spell of fascination is not woven that can now distract our philosophical repose. "To read some pleasant author till he be asleep," is open to objection unless your bed-curtains have been steeped in a fire-proof solution; but of all recipes against wakefulness we must protest against that of Ætius (even though he be the man who was "thrice consul"), who orders the patients "a sup of vinegar as they go to bed." “Rha

does not, apparently; "I say, a nutmeg and ale, or a good draught of muscadine, with a fost or a nutmeg, or a posset of the same.” We say so, too-any thing but the vinegar.

ever be in action." The whole of this chapter, which treats of "Exercise rectified," is rich in anecdote and allusion, "to the sweet content and capacity of the reader," as Burton himself says of other books; but we must not now linger over it. He holds all amusements to be innocent, which have an innocent intent; even stage-plays and dancing -"howsoever they be heavily censured by some severer Catoes"-are allowable, he thinks, to frail mortality in search of recreation. He will subscribe heartily, he says, to King James' declaration in favor of "May-games, wakes, and Whitsun ales." Yet he is not ignorant that there are higher and better things, even as relaxation, for the mind. The Christchurch student knows no delight like that which he enjoys amongst his favorite books-" so great pleasure, such sweet content than is in study." He would himself prescribe no better remedy, in most cases, than "the learning of some art or sci-sis seems to deliberate about it." Burton ence." This method of cure will hardly become so popular as change of air and liberal amusement. The modern Esculapius may safely counsel to the pale invalid who has had too much work or too much idleness, a Last, and not least, in the cure, are "mirth, moor in Scotland, or a trip to Hamburg, and music, and merry company." First, indeed, pocket his fee with the consciousness of hav- of the Salernitan trio, walks Dr. Merryman. ing at least given a palatable prescription; His prescriptions are "that sole nepenthes of but it would be striking out a novel line, and Homer, Helena's boule, Venus' girdle, so one which would perhaps hardly pay, to ad-renowned of old." This atrabilious plague vise him forthwith to "demonstrate a prop- begins with sorrow (saith Montanus), it osition in Euclide his five last books, extractst be expelled with hilarity." a square root," or even to study "that pleas- We are also furnished with several excelant tract of Machometes Bragdedinus, De lent philosophical arguments as remedies Superficierum Divisionibus," or "read Scal- against discontent, some of them more iniger, De Emendatione Temporum, and Peta- genious than practical. Are we melancholy vius, his adversary, till he understand them." from imprisonment or loss of liberty? We The reader fancies he sees the smile on De- are to remember that no man is free; all are mocritus' face here; has all the rest of this slaves-" lovers to their mistresses, rich men grave advice been really badinage? He is to their gold, courtiers generally to lust and not much re-assured by what follows: "If ambition, and all slaves to our affections." those other do not affect him, and his means As to imprisonment-" we are all prisoners; be great, to employ his purse and fill his what is our life but a prison? In Muscovy head he may go and find the philosopher's and many northern parts they are imprisoned stone." They who are scarcely so ambitious half the year in stoves; they dare not peep as to embark upon this last discovery, may out for cold; at Aden, in Arabia, they are amuse themselves with lighter experiments; penned in all day long with that other exas, for instance, "Cornelius Drible his per- treme of heat." We in England are impetual motion;" or that friend of whom prisoned by the sea. As to banishment, that "Marcellus Vrenken, an Hollander," makes should be no cause for melancholy; "to a mention as being "about an instrument" wise man there is no difference of climes ;. (perhaps he has finished it by this time) friends are everywhere to him that behaves. "quo videbit qua in altero horizonte sit "—by himself well; and a prophet is not esteemed

in his own country." Our author has no Not to be "too niggardly miserable of his sympathy with nostalgia. "Tis a childish purse; nor "too bold to practise upon

himself; " and above all things to have confidence in his physician. Wonderful is the power of Imagination, both in producing and removing such diseases as this treatise deals "Plures sanat, in quem plures confidunt," says Cardan; and this is admitted by great physicians to have been a notable secret of their success.

humor, to hone after home, to be discontent
with that which others seek; to prefer, as
base Islanders and Norwegians do, their
own rugged iland before Italy and Greece,
the gardens of the world." If, in spite of with.
such impregnable arguments, any true Briton
be still apt to prefer ❝ his own rugged iland,"
we can only give him the advice with which
Burton concludes his chapter-" Read Peter
Alcionius his two books of this subject."

It is not probable that many sufferers will have recourse to the pharmacopæia of To the remedial powers of physic, techni- the seventeenth century. It contains some cally so called, Burton is not altogether com- strange items, both simples and compounds, plimentary. He finds good authorities who which modern science has either lost or negmaintain that those tribes who are so happy lected. Much to be desired were that stone as not to have invented doctors, live the called Chelidonius, "found" (in those days) longest, and have the best health. "Dis-"in the belly of a swallow, which will cure marius Bleskenius, in his accurate descrip- melancholics," and "make them amiable tion of Island" (Iceland), assures his read- and merry." Or that species of loadstone ers that "without physic or physician they live many of them two hundred and fifty years." Certain ancient writers, in their description of our own island, observe," that there was of old no use of physick among us, and but little at this day, except it be for a few nice idle citizens, surfeiting courtiers, and stall-fed gentleman lubbers; the country people use kitchen physic." He reminds us that Plato made it a sign of a corrupt commonwealth, "where lawyers and physicians did abound; " and he tells us how one Canonherius, "a great doctor himself, one of their own tribe," proves by sixteen arguments that physic is "no art at all; no, not worthy of the name of a liberal science, but full of impostors, and does generally more harm than good." "The devil himself was the first inventor of it; " for Apollo claims it," and who was Apollo but the divell?" His banter upon this subject is very amusing, both here and elsewhere in his book; but he checks himself at last, and recants" lest some physician should mistake me, and deny me physick when I am sick." Apollo, he confesses, was worthily deified, and the art is noble and divine. Still, a discreet and godly physician" will prefer diet to medicine; and it has been often found, as Lælius records in his consultations, that " after a deal of physic to no purpose, left to themselves, they have re

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covered."

He has also scattered here and there, a few words of sound advice to the patient.

which, "taken in parcels inward, it will". (some say), “like viper's wine" (another desideratum), "restore youth." All precious stones and jewels" have excellent vertues to pacifie the affections of the mind; and our fair students will learn with great satisfaction that this is the philosophical reason why men" (and we suppose women) "so much covet to have them." For the future, when the bride has a passion for sapphires, we shall know that she only values them for their power to inspire pure and chaste thoughts; if she rather affect topazes, it can only be in the hope that this stone "will increase wisdom," as Cardan promises; or if she has a fancy for a set of emeralds, it must be that, like Mercurialis, she admires the emerald "for his virtues in pacifying." Even a parure of diamonds becomes a laudable object of female ambition, when we remember that, in the philosophers' system, "it calmed anger, and strengthened wedded love; and hence was called the Stone of Reconciliation." * Of the much vaunted powers of Paracelsus' aurum potabile-potable gold †-grave doubts are to be enter*See a pleasant chapter in De Barrera's Gems and Jewels, part iv. c. i.

† Here is the receipt, if any curious reader likes to try it, from the Paris pharmacopeia: "Dissolve half an onnce of pure gold in two ounces of aqua regia (nitromuriatic acid), employing a gentle heat; add one ounce of oil of rosemary; shake the mixture, and the gold will quit the acid and unite with the oil, giving a beauwhich remains at the bottom, and mix with fifteen tiful yellow color. Decant it from off the acid ounces of rectified spirits of wine."

tained. It must have been a pretty-looking irons in the suture of the crown" may also medicine; and we presume that the idea is still preserved in the Dantzic liqueur known as gold-water, with its floating particles of gold-leaf. The author is doubtful as to the virtue of amulets. He had been even more incredulous; but

...

be used; and certainly, if that kind of treatment does not make a man lively, it is hard to say what will. Also (this must in extreme cases), "'tis not amiss to bore the skull with an instrument, to let out the fuliginous vapors." "Guianerius cured a noble man in Savoy by boring alone, leaving the hole open a month together." Gordonius (a canny Scot, we opine, rather of the slow and prudent school, compared with his more dashing contemporaries) "would have this to be tried last, when no other physick will serve."

"Being in the country in the vacation time not many years since, at Lindly, in Leicestershire, my father's house, I first observed this amulet of a spider in a nut-shell lapped in silke, etc., so applied for an ague by my mother. Among all other experiments, this, methought, was most absurd and ridiculous; I could see no warrant for it. Quid aranea cam febre? for what anA large portion of Burton's treatise is tipathy till at length, rambling amongst taken up with a discussion of the symptoms, authors, as often I do, I found this very causes, and cure of love-melancholy (for medicine in Dioscorides, approved by Mat-"Love is a species of melancholy "); but on thiolus, repeated by Aldrovandus. I began this branch of the subject we decline, for to have a better opinion of it, and to give more reasons than one, to enter, except to more credit to amulets, when I saw it in extract the following result of a post-morsome cases answer to experience." tem examination of a lover, "related out of Plato : "—

It is quite consonant with modern practice and experience that for this complaint there is "no more present remedy than a cup of wine or strong drink, if it be sobarly and opportunely used." But we cannot hold with Avicenna's opinion, that to be drunk is "excellent good physic; " or recommend, with Magninus, that a patient "should be so once a month at least," even though such a grave philosopher as Seneca advises it. The sober reader will incline, with Burton, to think that such doctrines can only be maintained by " heathens and dissolute Arabians." He might have found, however, that such bacchanalian maxims were popular in his favorite school of Salerno :"Si nocturna tibi noceat potatio vini,

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"Empedocles the philosopher was present at the cutting-up of one that died for love; his heart was combust, his liver smoakie, his lungs dried up, insomuch that he verily belived his soul was either sod or roasted through the vehemency of love's fire."-Part iii. Sect. 2, M. 3, S. 1.

As we have before observed, it is often hard to discover when Burton is in earnest, and when he is merely indulging in a grave banter. Probably he did not always know

himself.
His mind was so abundantly
stored with all varieties of reading, from
the most fantastic cabalistic lore to the
grandest and truest wisdom, that it was hard
-or he was too dreamy-to separate the

Hoc ter mane bibas iterum, et fuerit medi- fanciful from the real. The canons of credcina."

ibility were not so definitely fixed in his time as they are in ours. He does not care to emancipate himself altogether from the creed of the vulgar of his own day; rather, his was a mind which found congenial food both in what has been called "the follies of science," and in the marvels of unlettered credulity. Of his belief in judicial astrology we have seen something already; he is unwilling to doubt the existence of Lamias and Incubi. Birds of Paradise that live on air and dew-the bleeding of a corpse at the touch of the murderer-the "manifest" raining of lemmer rats in Norway-are all brought forward as recognized facts, in the