CHAPTER XVI. JOHNSON. "There are many invisible circumstances," says the author of the Rambler, "which, whether we read as enquirers after natural or moral knowledge, whether we intend to enlarge our science, or increase our virtue, are more important than public occurrences. All the plans and enterprises of De Witt are now of less importance to the world, than that part of his personal character which represents him as careful of his health, and negligent of his life." There are three peculiarities in Johnson's character which every one is aware of, his irascibility, his superstition, and his fear of death; but there are very many acquainted with these singular inconsistencies of so great a mind, who are ignorant, or at least unobservant, of that malady under which he laboured, from manhood to the close of life, the symptoms of which disease are invariably those very moral infirmities of temper and judgment, which were his well known defects. Few, indeed, are ignorant that he was subject to great depression of spirits, amounting almost to despair, but generally speaking, the precise nature of his disorder, and the extent of its influence over the mental faculties, are very little considered. There are a train of symptoms belonging to a particular disease described by Cullen, and amongst them it is worth while to consider whether the anomalies that have been alluded to in the character of Johnson are to be discovered. The following are Cullen's terms: "A disposition to seriousness, sadness, and timidity as to all future events, an apprehension of the worst and most unhappy state of them, and, therefore, often on slight grounds, an apprehension of great evil. Such persons are particularly attentive to the state of their own health, to every the smallest change of feeling in their bodies; and from any unusual sensation, perhaps of the slightest kind, they apprehend great danger and even death itself. In respect to these feelings and fears, there is commonly the most obstinate belief and persuasion." It is needless to say, the disease that is spoken of is hypochondria. Whether Johnson was its victim, or whether the defects in his character were original imperfections and infirmities, natural to his disposition, remains to be shown in the following pages. We have a few words to say of the nature of hypochondria, which need not alarm the general reader; so little is known of any thing relative to it besides its symptoms, that very little can be said upon the subject. In the first place it may be as well to acknowledge that the seat of the disorder is unknown. Secondly, be the seat where it may, the nature of the morbid action that is going on, we likewise know not: and, thirdly, that it is a disorder little under the influence of medicine, almost all medical authors do admit. These admissions, we apprehend, bring the question to very narrow limits; to limits which trench on the boundaries of every literary man's estate: for, indeed, the most important points left for consideration are whether men of studious habits are more subject than other men to this disorder; and if more so, whether the moral infirmities of the hypochon driac are entitled to more indulgence than those of an individual who labours under no such depressing ailment. In proof of the first assertion, we have only to say, that Hippocrates places the seat of the disorder in the liver; Boerhaave in the spleen: Hoffman in the stomach; Sydenham in the animal spirits; Broussais in the intestines; and Willis in the brain. In corroboration of the second, we have but to adduce Sydenham, describing it as a disease of debility; Dr. Wilson Phillip, as one of chronic inflammation; and Dr. James Johnson, (and, perhaps, with the most reason,) as one of morbid sensibility: but, like taste, there is no accounting for theories. For the truth of our last proposition we appeal to general experience, for the confirmation of the opinion, that time and temperance are the two grand remedies of morbid melancholy. The symptoms of hypochondria are generally preceded by those of indigestion, though not in very many cases accompanied by them, and not unfrequently do those of hypochondria degenerate into one form or other of partial insanity; in short, hypochondria is the middle state between the vapours of dyspepsia and the delusions of monomania. One of the greatest evils of this disorder is the injustice that the invalid is exposed to from the common opinion that it is the weakness of the sufferer, and not the power of the disease, which makes his melancholy "a thing of life apart;" and the neglect of exerting his volition, which enables it to take possession of his spirits, and even of his senses. His well meaning friends see no reason why he should deem himself either sick or sorrowful, when his physician can put his finger on no one part of his frame, and say, 'Here is a disease;' or when the patient himself can point out no real evil in his prospect, and say, 'Here is the cause of my dejection.' It is vain to tell him his sufferings are imaginary, and must be conquered by his reason, and that the shapes of horror, and the sounds of terror, which haunt and harass him by day and night, are engendered in his brain, and are the effects of a culpable indulgence in gloomy reveries. In his better moments he himself knows that it is So, but in spite of every exertion those reveries do come upon him; and instead of receding from the gulf they open beneath his feet, he feels like a timid person standing on the verge of a precipice, irresistibly impelled to fling himself from the brink on which he totters. It is worse than useless to reason with him about the absurdity of his conduct-his temper is only irritated: it is cruel to laugh at his delusions, or to try to laugh him out of them-his misery is only increased by ridicule. 66 It may be very true, that he exaggerates every feeling; but, as Dr. James Johnson has justly observed, “ all his sensations are exaggerated, not by his voluntary act, but by the morbid sensibility of his nerves, which he cannot by any exertion of his mind prevent." Raillery, remonstrance, the best of homilies, the gravest of lectures, do not answer here; the argument must be addressed to the disordered mind, through the medium of the stomach. A well regulated regimen, and an aromatic aperient, may do more to remove the delusion of the hypochondriac, than any thing that can be said, preached, or prescribed to him. Indigestion is often one of the accompanying symptoms of hypochondria; but, as we have before remarked, it may be often wanting in the severest forms of the disorder, yet there is great reason to regard hypochondria in no other light than that of an aggravated form of dys 66 pepsia. At all events there is no shape of this disease, as Dr. J. Johnson has observed, which is not aggravated by intemperance in diet, and not mitigated by an abstemious regimen. Burton's account of the horrors of hypochondria, is one of the most graphic of all the descriptions of its sufferings. “As the rain,” saith Austin, penetrates the stone, so does this passion of melancholy penetrate the mind. It commonly accompanies men to their graves; physicians may ease, but they cannot cure it; it may lie hid for a time, but it will return again, as violently as ever, on slight occasions as well as on casual excesses. Its humour is like Mercury's weather-beaten stature, which had once been gilt; the surface was clean and uniform, but in the chinks there was still a remnant of gold: and in the purest bodies, if once tainted by hypochondria, there will be some relics of melancholy still left, not so easily to be rooted out. Seldom does this disease procure death, except (which is the most grievous calamity of all) when the patients make away with themselves—a thing familiar enough amongst them when they are driven to do violence to themselves to escape from present insufferable pain. They can take no rest in the night, or if they slumber, fearful dreams astonish them, their soul abhorreth all meat, and they are brought to death's door, being bound in misery and in iron. Like Job, they curse their stars, for Job was melancholy to despair, and almost to madness. They are weary of the sun and yet afraid to die, vivere nolunt et mori nesciunt. And then, like Esop's fishes, they leap from the frying-pan into the fire, when they hope to be eased by means of physic;-a miserable end to the disease when ultimately left to their fate by a jury of physicians furiously disposed; and there remains no more |