The fish oft-times the burgher dispossessed,
And sat, not as a meat, but as a guest:
And oft the Tritons, and the Sea-nymphs, saw
Whole shoals of Dutch served up for cabillau.
Or, as they over the new level ranged,
For pickled herring, pickled Heeren changed.
Nature, it seemed, ashamed of her mistake,
Would throw their land away at duck and drake:
Therefore necessity, that first made kings,
Something like government among them brings:
For as with Pigmys, who best kills the crane,
Among the hungry he that treasures grain,
Among the blind the one-eyed blinkard reigns,
So rules among the drowned he that drains.
Not who first sees the rising sun, commands;
But who could first discern the rising lands;
Who best could know to pump an earth so leak,
Him they their lord and country's father speak;
To make a bank was a great plot of state;—
Invent a shovel, and be a magistrate.

We can never read these or some other ludicrous verses of Marvell, even, when by ourselves, without laughter; but we must curtail our self-indulgence for the present.

GILBERT! GILBERT!

The idea generally conveyed to us by historians of Thomas à Becket is that of a mere haughty priest, who tried to elevate the religious power above the civil. But in looking more narrowly into the accounts of him, it appears that for a great part of his life he was a merry layman, was a great falconer, feaster, and patron, as well as man of business; and he wore all characters with such unaffected pleasantness to all ranks, that he was called the Delight of the Western World.

All on a sudden, to every body's surprise, Henry the 2nd, from chancellor made him archbishop; and with equal suddenness, though retaining his affability, the new head of the English church put off all his worldly graces and pleasures (save and except a rich gown over his sackcloth);-and in the midst of a gay court, became the most mortified of ascetics. Instead of hunting and hawking, he paced a solitary cloister; instead of his wine, he drank fennel-water; and in lieu of soft clothing, he indulged his back in stripes.

This phenomenon has divided the opinions of the moral critics. Some insist that Becket was religiously in earnest, and think the change natural to a man of the world whose heart had been struck with reflection, Others see in it nothing but ambition. We certainly think that three parts of the truth are with the latter; and that Becket, suddenly enabled to dispute a kind of sovereignty with his prince and friend, gave way to the new temptation, just as he had done to his falconry, and fine living. But the complete alteration of his way of life,-the enthusiasm which enabled him to set up so dif

ferent a greatness against his former one,-shews, that his character partook at least of as much sincerity, as would enable him to delude himself in good taste. In proportion as his very egotism was concerned, it was likely that such a man would exalt the gravity and importance of his new calling. He had flourished at an earthly court: he now wished to be as great a man in the eyes of another; and worldly power, which was at once to be enjoyed and despised by virtue of his religious office, had a zest given to it's possession, of which the incredulousness of mere insincerity could know nothing.

Thomas à Becket may have inherited his portion of the romantic from his mother, whose story is a singular one. His father, Gilbert Becket, who was afterwards a flourishing citizen, was in his youth a soldier in the crusades; and being taken prisoner, became slave to an Emir or Saracen prince. By degrees he obtained the confidence of his master, and was admitted to his company, where he met a personage who became more attached to him. This was the Emir's daughter. Whether by her means or not does not appear, but after some time he contrived to escape. The lady with her loving heart followed him. She knew, they say, but two words of his language,London and Gilbert; and by repeating the former, she obtained a passage in a vessel, arrived in England, and found her trusting way to the metropolis. She then took to her other talisman, and went from street to street pronouncing Gilbert. A crowd collected about her wherever she went, asking of course a thousand questions, and to all she had but one answer-Gilbert! Gilbert! She found her faith in it sufficient. Chance, or her determination to go through every street, brought her at last to the one in which he who had won her heart in slavery, was living in prosperous condition. The crowd drew the family to the window; his servant recognised her; and Gilbert Becket took to his arms and his bridal bed, his far-come princess, with her solitary fond word.

These are better histories than the quarrels of kings and archbishops.

FATAL MISTAKE OF NERVOUS DISORDERS FOR INSANITY.

Some affecting catastrophes in the public papers induce us to say a few words on the mistaken notions, which are so often, in our opinion, the cause of their appearance. It is much to be wished that some physician, truly so called, and philosophically competent to the task, would write a work on this subject. We have plenty of books on symptoms and other alarming matters, very useful for increasing the harm already existing. We believe also there are some works of a different kind, if not written in direct counteraction; but the learned authors are apt to be so prodigiously grand and etymological in their title-pages, that they must frighten the general understanding with their very advertisements.

There is this great difference between what is generally understood by the word insanity, and the nervous or melancholy disorders, the excess of which is so often confounded with it. Insanity is a consequence of malformation of the brain, and is by no means of necessity attended with melancholy or even ill health. The patient, in the very midst of it, is often strong, healthy, and even chearful. On the other hand, nervous disorders or even melancholy in it's most aggravated state, is nothing but the excess of a state of stomach and blood, extremely common. The mind no doubt will act upon that state and exasperate it; but there is great reaction between mind and body; and as it is a common thing for a man in an ordinary fever, or fit of the bile, to be melancholy, and even to do or feel inclined to do an extravagant thing, so it is as common for him to get well and be quite chearful again. Thus it is among witless people that the true insanity will be found. It is the more intelligent that are subject to the other disorders; and a proper use of their intelligence will shew them what the disorders are.

But weak treatment may frighten the intelligent. A kind person for instance, in a fit of melancholy, may confess that he feels an inclination to do some desperate or even cruel thing. This is often treated at once as insanity, instead of an excess of the kind just mentioned; and the person seeing he is thought mad, begins to think himself so, and at last acts as if he were. This is a lamentable evil; but it does not stop here. The children or other relatives of the person may become victims to the mistake. They think there is madness, as the phrase is, " in the family;" and so whenever they feel ill, or meet with a misfortune, the thought will prey upon their minds; and this may lead to catastrophes, with which they have really no more to do than any other sick or unfortunate people. How many persons have committed an extravagance in a brain fever, or undergone hallucinations of mind in consequence of getting an ague, or taking opium, or fifty other causes; and yet the moment the least wandering of mind is observed in them, others become frightened; their fright is manifested beyond all necessity; and the patients and their family must suffer for it. They seem to think, that no disorder can properly be held a true Christian sickness, and fit for charitable interpretation, but where the patient has gone regularly to bed, and had curtains, and caudle-cups, and nurses about him, like a well-behaved respectable sick gentleman. But this state of things implies muscular weakness, or weakness of that sort which renders the bodily action feeble. Now, in nervous disorders, the muscular action may be as strong as ever; and people may reasonably be allowed a world of illness, sitting in their chairs, or even walking or running.

These mistaken pronouncers upon disease ought to be told, that when they are thus unwarrantably frightened, they are partaking of the very essence of what they misapprehend; for it is fear, in all it's various degrees and modifications, which is at the bottom of nervousness and melancholy; not fear in it's ordinary sense, as opposed to

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cowardice, (for a man who would shudder at a bat or a vague idea, may be bold as a lion against an enemy), but imaginative fear fear either of something known or of the patient knows not what ;a vague sense of terror,—an impulse,―an apprehension of ill,dwelling upon some painful and worrying thought. Now this suffering is inevitably connected with a weak state of the body in some respects, particularly of the stomach. Hundreds will be found to have felt it, if patients enquire; but the mind is sometimes afraid of acknowledging it's apprehensions even to itself; and thus fear broods over and hatches fear.

These disorders, generally speaking, are greater or less in their effects according to the exercise of reason. But do not let the word be misunderstood: we should rather say, according to the extent of the information. A very imaginative man will indeed be likely to suffer more than others; but if his knowledge is at all in proportion, he will also get through his evil better than an uninformed man suffering great terrors. And the reason is, that he knows how much bodily unhealthiness has to do with it. The very words that frighten the unknowing, might teach them better, if understood. Thus insanity itself properly means nothing but unhealthiness or unsoundness. Derangement explains itself, and may surely mean very harmless things. Melancholy is compounded of two words, which signify dark bile. Hypochondria is the name of one of the regions of the stomach, a very instructive etymology. And lunacy refers to effects, real or imaginary, of particular states of the moon; which if any thing after all, are nothing more than what every delicate constitution feels in its degree from particular states of the weather; for weather, like the tides, is apt to be in such and such a condition, when the moon presents such and such a face.

It has been said,

Great wits to madness nearly are allied.

It is curious that he who wrote the saying (Dryden) was a very sound wit to the end of his life; while his wife, who was of a weak understanding, became insane. An excellent writer (Wordsworth) has written an idle couplet about the insanity of poets:

We poets enter on our path with gladness,

But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness.

If he did not mean madness in the ordinary sense, he should not have written this line; if he did, he ought not to have fallen, in the teeth of his information, into so vulgar an error. There are very

few instances of insane poets, or of insane great understandings of any sort. Bacon, Milton, Newton, Shakspeare, Cervantes, &c. were all of minds as sound as they were great. So it has been with the If Tasso and a infinite majority of literary men of all countries. few others were exceptions, they were but exceptions; and the de

rangement in these eminent men has very doubtful characters about it, and is sometimes made a question. It may be pretty safely affirmed, at least, upon an examination of it, that had they not been the clever men they were, it would have been much worse and less equivocal. Collins, whose case was after all one of inanition rather than insanity, had been a free liver; and seems to have been hurt by having a fortune left him. Cowper was weak-bodied, and beset by Methodists. Swift's body was full of bad humours. He himself attributed his disordered system to the effects of a surfeit of fruit on. his stomach; and in his last illness he used to break out in enormous biles and blisters. This was a violent effort of nature to help and purify the current of his blood,-the main object in all such cases. Dr. Johnson, who was subject to mists of melancholy, used to fancy he should go mad; but he never did.

Exercise, conversation, chearful society, amusements of all sorts, or a kind, patient, and gradual helping of the bodily health, till the mind be capable of amusement (for it should never foolishly be told "not to think" of melancholy things, without having something done for it to mend the bodily health),-these are the cures, the only cures, and in our opinion the almost infallible cures of nervous disorders, however excessive. Above all, the patient should be told, that there has often been an end to that torment of one haunting idea, which is indeed a great and venerable suffering. Many persons have got over it in a week, a few weeks, or a month, some in a few months, some not for years, but they have got over it at last. There is a remarkable instance of this in the life of our great king Alfred. He was seized, says his contemporary biographer, with such a strange illness while sitting at table in the twenty-fifth year (we think) of his age, that he shrieked aloud; and for twenty years afterwards this illness so preyed upon him, that the relief of one hour was embittered by what he dreaded would come the next. His disorder is conjectured by some to have been an internal cancer; by others, with more probability, the black bile, or melancholy. The physicians of those times knew nothing about it; and the people shewed at once their ignorance, and their admiration of the king, by saying that the devil had caused it out of jealousy. It was probably produced by anxiety for the state of his country; but the same thing which wounded him might have helped to keep him up; for he had plenty of business to attend to, and fought with his own hand in fifty-six pitched battles. Now exactly twenty years after, in the forty-fifth year of his age (if our former recollection is right) this disorder totally left him ; and his great heart was where it ought to be, in a heaven of health and calmness.

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