military discipline, from inland navigation to the morality of dancing-schools, every thing is discussed and determined.

In his introductory address to the rea der, where he indulges himself in an Utopian sketch of a perfect government (with due homage previously paid to the character of James I.), we find the origin of Mr. Shandy's notions on this subject. The passages are too long to be tran scribed. o haiqɔ sut moi lub zum

The quaintness of many of his divie sions seems to have given Sterne the hint of his ludicrous titles to several chapters; and the risible effect of Burton's grave endeavours to prove indisputable facts by weighty quotations, he has happily caught, and sometimes well burlesqued. The archness which Burton displays oc casionally, and his indulgence of playful digressions from the most serious discus sions, often give his style, an air of familiar conversation, notwithstanding the laborious collections which supply his

text. He was capable of writing excel lent poetry, but he seems to have culti

tol vated this talent too little, The English verses prefixed to his book, which possess beautiful imagery, and great sweetness of versification, have been frequently published. His Latin elegiac verses, ad, dressed to his book, shew, a very agreeable turn for raillery. Joue in When the force of the subject opens his own vein of prose, we discover valuable sense and brilliant expression, Such is his account of the first feelings of me lancholy persons, written, probably, from his own experience. Most pleasant it. is, at first, to such as are melancholy giyen, to lie in bed whole days, and keep their chambers; to walk alone in some solitary grove, betwixt wood and water, by a brook side, to meditate upon some delightsome and pleasant subject, which shall affect them most; amabilis insania, and mentis gratissimus error :»a most incomparable delight it is so to

melancholize and build castles in the air, to go smiling to themselves, acting an infinite variety of parts, which they suppose, and strongly imagine they represent, or that they see acted or done.**** So delightsome these toys are at first, they could spend whole days and nights without sleep, even whole years alone in such contemplations and fantastical meditations, which are like unto dreams, and they will hardly be drawn from them, or willingly interrupted; so pleasant their vain conceits are, that they hinder their ordinary tasks and necessary business, they cannot address themselves to them, or almost to any study or employment. These fantastical and bewitching thoughts so covertly, so feelingly, so urgently, so continually set upon, creep in, insinuate, possess, overcome, distract, and detain them; they cannot, I say, go about their more necessary business, stave off or extricate themselves, but are ever musing, melan

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cholizing, and carried along, as he (they say) that is led round about a heath with a Puck in the night, they run earnestly on in this labyrinth of anxious and solicitous melancholy meditations, and cannot well or willingly refrain, or easily leave off, winding and unwinding themselves, as so many clocks, and still pleasing their humours, until at last the scene is turned upon a sudden, by some bad object, and they, being now habituated to such vain meditations and solitary places, can endure no company, can ruminate of nothing but harsh and distasteful subjects. Fear, sorrow, suspicion, subrusticus pudor, discontent, cares, and weariness of life surprise them in a moment, and they can think of nothing else, continually suspecting. No sooner are their eyes open, but this infernal plague or melancholy seizeth on them, and terrifies their souls, representing some dismal object to their minds, which now by no means, no labour, no persuasions

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they can avoid: hæret lateri lethalis arundo."* This passage should be carefully read by young persons of fine taste and delicate sentiments, for it contains a just account of the first inroads of melan choly on susceptible imaginations. No thing is more seductive, or more ha zardous to minds of this cast, than that kind of mental luxury, which is gene rally called castle-building. It appears a happy privilege to possess the direction of an ideal world, into which we can withdraw at pleasure, when disgusted with the gross material scene before us. But in this fairy-land lurk terrible phantoms, ready to seize the incautious wanderer, in moments of dejection and weakness, and to deprive him for ever of ease and liberty..

Burton has introduced a great part of these ideas into his poetical abstract of melancholy.

* Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 52, 53. My copy is the eighth edition, 1676. The first edition was published in 1617.