other "dreamers of dreams" were suffered to go at large, unless there were grounds to apprehend the unpeopling of Duke's Place by an expedition to the Holy Land.

Nearly a kin to the exaltation of mind occasioned by enthusiasm, is the case of violent and uncontroulable passions, which frequently bring a man into a state scarcely distinguishable from madness. Á writer, indeed, has happily said of an habitually passionate man, that "he is a madman with lucid intervals." I have known instances of insanity, in which the only symptoms were excessive irritability of temper, joined with an extraordinary proneness to suspicion, while the powers of the intellect remained uncommonly vigorous and acute. How nearly have some very eminent men of admired talents approached to this condition? Without meaning any disrespect to the memory of Mr. Burke, I may instance his dagger-scene in the house of commons, and the perpetual exasperation under which he laboured near the close of life, while the savage scenes of the French Revolution were transacting, as proofs of a temporary privation of the power of self-government. It gives, indeed, a very depreciating idea of human reason, to be told, as they who frequent promiscuous company often are, that there are certain topics which must not be started in the presence of certain persons, lest they should break out into displays of unseemly violence. What is this caution but an avowal that we habitually live among persons who are not masters of themselves, and are fitter for a mad-house than for sober and rational society?

As the extreme of high and fiery spirits treads on the border of one species of insanity, so the gloom and despondency of low spirits is equally on the verge of another. Melancholy maduess, indeed, will scarcely admit of any other characteristic than that of the mind dwelling so intensely upon some one distressful idea as to unfit the patient for the ordinary functions and enjoyments of life; and surely the same may be said of a high degree of what has been called spleen or low spirits. The identity of these affections ought, at least, to be maintained by coroner's juries, who generally admit instances of unusual depression to be sufficient proofs of mental derangement to justify The horrible idea of eternal verdict of insanity in cases of suicide. reprobation, which haunts the imagination of so many converts to a a gloomy system of religion, seems indeed, in a susceptible mind, scarcely compatible with the preservation of reason; and it is no wonder that the strongest understandings sink under it.

Another aberration from the common judgment and practice of man kind consists of oddities and singularities in manners and habits of life. Of these some are so extravagant that they may justly be thought to denote a perversion of the rational faculty, whilst others are often found to subsist with an extraordinary degree of good sense. Indeed, the same enlargement of mind and freedom of prejudice which lead a person to think for himself in important matters, will frequently in duce him to act in trifles in a way which seems to himself more rea sonable than the customary mode, regardless of the hazard of being wondered at, or ridiculed. Aversion to restraint, and contempt of VOL. I.

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common

common forms, are also frequent attendants upon superior talents. From these causes the number of odd characters is very considerable; and it would be a sweeping clause indeed that should establish as a proof of lunacy every harmless whimsicality by which a man may be distinguished from his neighbours. When a late nobleman, who had more law, learning, and argument in his head than most of his order, was represented as incapable of making a will, because he used to wrap his head in his housekeeper's cloak, and occasionally supped on a roasted shoulder of mutton, the imputation was justly scouted; "for who knows (said the chancellor) how far such a rule of inference might reach ?" Not but that peculiarities of conduct, though trifling in themselves, may excite a suspicion of some latent irregularity in the human machine, which may hereafter display itself in a more serious deviation. Either Addison or Steele in a paper on this subject mentions a gentleman of great respectability who rendered himself particular only by wearing a short sword when long ones were fashionable. "I watched him narrowly (says the writer) for a course of years, continually expecting that he would break out into some extravagance, when at length, to the surprize of every body but myself, he married his maid."

This story may possibly be a fiction; but in the chronicle of an Annual Register I met with a case of suicide preceded by symptoms of melancholic derangement, in a gentleman who frequented the higher circles, and who had long been noted for the peculiarity of wearing a hat of the same shape for twenty years, notwithstanding all the intermediate changes of fashion.

Nothing is more common in promiscuous society than to meet with persons who have got what is called a twist, that is, some wrongheadedness, or eccentricity of practice or sentiment which marks them out from the ordinary race of mortals. This turn not unfrequently is detrimental to a man's affairs, and exposes him to the censure or ridicule of the world, but within certain limits it is tolerated, and accounted no subject for legal interference.

Such a one may be troublesome to his friends, ruinous to his family, and vexatious to himself, but as he does not infure the peace of society, he is suffered to take his course. And after all this discussion, I can come to no other conclusion, than that insanity is such a deviation from common sense, as by the general consent of mankind is thought a sufficient cause for restriction from the usual offices and privileges of of men in the social state. It is not, therefore, for the philosopher, but for the magistrate, to determine upon it; for though it eludes the definition of the former, it is usually obvious enough to the notice of the latter.

Your's, &c.

SCRUTATOR.

P. S. I have said nothing of medical diagnostics of insanity, as I believe none properly corporeal are pretended to exist, and mental de

rangement

rangement, equally obvious to the common observer, is always deemed necessary to identify it. It is true, there are bodily symptoms which denote the approach of a fit of periodical madness; and there are others which distinguish settled insanity from temporary delirium.

CLASSICAL DISQUISITIONS.

Sketch of the literary History of Greece, being an Introduction to an account of its principal Writers,

ANCIENT Greece, a country more interesting perhaps than any other, as the nursery of arts and science, and once the chosen seat of liberty and public virtue, occupies on the surface of the earth a space but little proportioned to its historical celebrity. The greater part of the country now denominated Turkey in Europe, was almost unknown to the Greeks, and was justly classed among the barbarous tracts of the earth. Beyond Mount Hoemus, their acquaintance with the extensive regions watered by the tributary streams which fall from the south to the Danube, was little superior to our present knowledge of the uncivilized parts of America; and the geography of these countries appears to have remained very obscure till they were opened by the Roman arms, the great instruments for the diffusion of civilization in the ancient world. Even Macedonia and Thrace, though situated to the south of that great chain, were not till after a long period, admitted to the honour of the Grecian name, and a participation in Grecian civilization. In a strict sense, Thessaly and Epirus were the most northern provinces of Greece. To these succeeded, Acarnania, Aetolia, Phocis, Boeotia, Attica and Megaris. Peloponnesus was divided into six states, Achaia, Argolis, Laconia, Messenia, Elis, spreading round the coast, and Arcadia, an inland district, occupying the centre. Thus the whole of this renowned country, including the Peloponnesus, contains, according to the observation of a celebrated geographer, but little more space, than is occupied by the kingdom of Naples on the continent of Italy, together with the adjoining island of Sicily.

This limitation of territory was however in some degree recompensed by an ample share in the allotment of the gifts of nature. Greece is situated in a climate at once favourable to the full developement and active exertion of the human powers, and adapted for many of the richest and most useful productions of the earth. It possesses a large extent of sea-coast, indented with numerous bays and gulphs, and encompassed by many beautiful and fertile islands. The various mountainous chains by which it is intersected, diversify and adorn the face of the country, but at the same time render a considerable proportion of it unfit for the purposes of cultivation.

The splendour of its history and literature, the majesty of its lan

guage, and the number and grandeur of its works of art, have ensured to this country, and the people by whom it was inhabited, an eminence in the theatre of history, from which it is not likely that they will ever be displaced. If we make due allowance for the remoteness of the transactions of which it treats, and the little apparent connexion which they consequently possess with the manners, institutions, and political events and interests of the present age, the Grecian history presents to us one of the most interesting spectacles which have occurred in human affairs. A country whose extent is not calculated to confer on it more than the rank of a province in many ancient and modern kingdoms, and again subdivided into a number of petty and independent states, has transcended in fame and surpassed in important influence on human affairs, empires which have included within their boundaries, tracts almost commensurate with the great divisions of the globe.

The military achievements of this people are calculated powerfully to strike the imagination. The combats of Marathon and Thermopylæ, of Salamis and Platea, affect us with an impression little inferior to that, which results from the perusal of the most splendid and important of our national exploits. The contests of Athens and Sparta seem to vie with the rivalship of Rome and Carthage, or of France and Britain. The conquests of Alexander partake of the wonder of romance; they opened distant regions to mutual communication, and laid the foundation of one of the great empires of the earth.

But the records of military glory are more fitted to interest the imagination with a transient and unprofitable pleasure, than to produce a permanent and useful influence on the mind. Even the philosophic student of human affairs however, can find few topics of investigation more important than those which are furnished by the history of the Grecian states. In these countries some of the noblest experiments on the faculties of the human mind which have taken place, were first made. In the wide plains of Asia, while a rich soil and genial climate have long nourished an exuberant population, and ancient civilization, commencing beyond the period of historical record, has brought many of the useful arts to a state of considerable improvement, the chilling influence of despotism appears in almost every period to have debased the mind, and to have locked up its intellectual and moral energies in hopeless inactivity. Centuries of history as they pass present nothing but one dead scene of unvarying mediocrity. In Athens, freedom and civilization seem to have been, for the first time, conjoined, and under this friendly influence, the human faculties were first expanded to their proper dimensions. The rapid progress of arts, science, and elegant literature, from the age of Pisistratus to that of Alexander, is unequalled by any other period in history. Even Sparta, though it cherished a rude insensibility to the charms of literature and the pursuits of philosophy, yet excites a portion of our admiration, by its stern virtue, the durability of its institutions, and the subserviency of private to public feelings; and presents an interesting example of the empire of cir

cumstances

cumstances and education over the human mind, from which the philosopher will not fail to make important deductions.

It is by literary history that Greece possesses its most important connexion with the manners and sentiments of the present age: most of what is elegant in art, or dignified and refined in sentiment, and much of what is grand and enterprizing in philosophy, has descended to us from that nation, or taken rise from its example. Greece does not indeed appear to have been the parent country of any of those arts which are essential, to human accommodation; even letters and the elements of learning, she received from Egypt and the East; yet it is here that we first discern the peculiar pictures of European civilization and literature, that equality of social intercourse which is requisite to freedom of mind, philosophy without mysticism, poetry exempt from obscurity and tumour, oratory, simple, dignified, and argumentative, a spirit of bold and well combined investigation," the temperate dignity of style, the graceful proportions of art, the forms of visible and intellectual beauty, the just delineation of character and passion, the rhetoric of narrative and argument, the regular fabric of epic and dramatic poetry." (Gibbon, x. 51.)

I. The language of Greece is confessedly the most polished, exquisite, and powerful of all the modes of speech known to the western nations, and probably no language that ever existed, can be placed in ' competition with it. It unites in a degree far surpassing other tongues, all the valuable properties of speech, harmony of sounds, copiousness, facility of formation, derivation and composition, and a happy flexibility, equally adapted to the boldest flights of oratory and poetry; the graces of narrative and conversation; or the didactic precision of argument-" a musical and prolific language," as it is expressed by the historian," that gives a soul to the objects of sense, and a body to the abstractions of philosophy."

The history of the origin and progress of this language, like that of other ancient tongues, is obscure. We are told by historians of a wandering race, called Pelasgians, who seem to have been scattered, at a remote period, over a considerable part of the south of Europe; but all traces of their language have now disappeared.

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The primitive inhabitants of Greece are distinguished by Herodotus, in a curious passage, part of which it may not be improper to transcribe, into Pelasgians and Hellenes. " Croesus," says that historian, " upon enquiry found that the Lacedæmonians and Athenians were the principal nations of Greece, the former of Dorian, the latter of Ionian extraction. These nations had long been thus distinguished, the one being a a Pelasgic, the other an Hellenic, tribe." The former (that is, the Pelasgians of Attica, though the testimony of Herodotus with respect to the Pelasgic origin of the Athenians stands alone, and his learned French translator ventures on this occasion to contradict him)" The former have never yet left their country, the latter have been distinguished by their emigrations.""What language was employed by the Pelasgians, it is not in my power to say with certainty. If I may deduce a conjecture from that of the Pelasgians who still subsist,

and