There is an edition of Green's poems by Dr. Aikin, which deserves to be the companion of all who suffer as the author did, and who have sense enough to wish to relieve their sufferings by the like exercise of their reason.

In printing the following extracts I have not adopted the asterisks commonly employed for the purpose of implying omission. I always use them unwillingly, on account of the fragmentary air they give to the passages; and the paragraphs closed up so well together in the present instance, that I was tempted to waive them. But the circumstance is mentioned in order to prevent a false conclusion.

REMEDIES FOR THE SPLEEN.1

To cure the mind's wrong bias, spleen,
Some recommend the bowling-green;

Some hilly walks all, exercise;
Fling but a stone, the giant dies.

Laugh and be well. Monkeys have been
Extreme good doctors for the spleen;
And kittens, if the humour hit,
Have harlequin'd away the fit.

If spleen fogs rise at close of day,

I clear my evening with a play,
Or to some concert take my way.

The company, the shine of lights,
The scenes of humour, music's flights,
Adjust, and set the soul to rights.

In rainy days keep double guard,
Or spleen will surely be too hard;
Which, like those fish by sailors met,
Fly highest, while their wings are wet.
In such dull weather so unfit

To enterprise a work of wit,
When clouds one yard of azure sky,
That's fit for simile, deny,

I dress my face with studious looks,
And shorten tedious hours with books.
But when dull fogs invade the head,
That mem'ry minds not what is read,
I sit in window dry as ark,

And on the drowning world remark;
Or to some coffee-house I stray
For news, the manna of a day,
And from the hipp'd discourses gather,
That politics go by the weather.

Then seek good-humour'd tavern chums,
And play at cards, but for small sums;

Or with the merry fellows quaff,

And laugh aloud with them that laugh;

Or drink a joco-serious cup

With souls who 've took their freedom up;

And let my mind, beguil'd by talk,

In Epicurus' garden walk,

Who thought it heav'n to be serene ;

Pain, hell; and purgatory, spleen.

Sometimes I dress, with women sit,

And chat away the gloomy fit;
Quit the stiff garb of serious sense,
And wear a gay impertinence.

Permit, ye fair, your idol-form, Which e'en the coldest heart can warm,

May with its beauties grace my line,
While I bow down before its shrine,
And your throng'd altars with my lays
Perfume, and get by giving praise.
With speech so sweet, so sweet a mien,
You excommunicate the spleen,

Which fiend-like, flies the magic ring
You form with sound, when pleas'd to sing.
Whate'er you say, howe'er you move,
We look, we listen, and approve.

Your touch, which gives to feeling bliss,
Our nerves officious throng to kiss.
By Celia's pat, on their report,
The grave-air'd soul, inclin'd to sport,
Renounces wisdom's sullen pomp,
And loves the floral game, to romp.
But who can view the pointed rays,
That from black eyes scintillant blaze?
Love on his throne of glory seems
Encompass'd with satellite beams.
But when blue eyes, more softly bright,
Diffuse benignly humid light,

We gaze, and see the smiling loves,

And Cytherea's gentle doves,

And raptur'd fix in such a face

Love's mercy-seat and throne of grace.
Shine but on age, you melt its snow;
Again fires long-extinguish'd glow,
And charm'd by witchery of eyes,
Blood long congealèd liquefies!

True miracle, and fairly done

By heads which are ador'd while on.2

Such thoughts as love the gloom of night,

I close examine by the light;

For who, though brib'd by gain to lie,
Dare sunbeam-written truths deny,
And execute plain common sense
On faith's mere hearsay evidence?

That superstition mayn't create, And club its ills with those of fate, I many a notion take to task, Made dreadful by its visor mask. Thus scruple, spasm of the mind, Is cur'd, and certainty I find; Since optic reason shows me plain, I dreaded spectres of the brain; And legendary fears are gone, Though in tenacious childhood sown. Thus in opinions I commence Freeholder in the proper sense, And neither suit nor service do, Nor homage to pretenders show, Who boast themselves, by spurious roll, Lords of the manor of the soul; Preferring sense, from chin that's bare, To nonsense thron'd in whisker'd hair.

Thus, then, I steer my bark, and sail On even keel with gentle gale; At helm I make my reason sit,

My crew of passions all submit.

If dark and blust'ring prove some nights,
Philosophy puts forth her lights;
Experience holds the cautious glass,
To shun the breakers, as I pass,
And frequent throws the wary lead,
To see what dangers may be hid;
And once in seven years I'm seen
At Bath or Tunbridge to careen.

Though pleas'd to see the dolphins play,
I mind my compass and my way.3
With store sufficient for belief,

And wisely still prepar'd to reef,
Nor wanting the dispersive bowl
Of cloudy weather in the soul,
I make (may Heav'n propitious send
Such wind and weather to the end)
Neither becalm'd nor overblown,

Life's voyage to the world unknown.

1 The disorder here called the Spleen, was of old called Melancholy, or Hypochondria; then it became Vapours or the Hyp, then the Spleen, then the Nerves or Low Spirits. The designation now varies between Nerves and Biliousness. Melancholy signifies Black Bile, as Hypochondria does a region of the stomach; and there is no doubt that all the disorders, great and small, connected with low spirits, are traceable to the stomach and state of digestion, sometimes in consequence of anxiety or too much thought, oftener from excess, and want of exercise. Too much eating (sometimes wrongly exchanged for too little) is the unromantic cause of nine-tenths of the romantic melancholies in existence. Your piecrust is a greater caster of shadows over this life, than all the platonical "prison houses" the poets talk of.

2" By heads which are ador'd while on."-A felicitous allusion to the imposture of St. Januarius, a cheat still practised at Naples. Clotted blood is brought