ament.

been productive of any injury to his health, which is to be ascribed in a great measure to his peculiarly happy temperHe appears through his whole career to have.enjoyed a remarkable exemption from all those painfully agitating feelings which so wear upon the mind and body of the larger proportion of authors; to have displayed little of that keen sensibility so proverbially characteristic of the aspirants for literary fame. Hence his mental efforts must have been attended with less anxiety, and his moral tranquillity less hazarded by their event than among the more sensitive tribe of writers. It may furthermore be added that he was constant in his habits of exercise in the open air. But in the latter part of his life, when the brightness of his fortune had become overcast by the clouds of adversity; when his mental tasks were mingled with anxiety and broke in upon his needful rest, and his regular and salutary exercise, then did his physical health begin to yield, and fatal disease of the brain soon closed the last and most painfully tragic scene of his conspicuous and worthy career.

Those mental employments then, as it will now be inferred, which have the least tendency to call forth the painful and agitating emotions, will always be found most consonant to health. I may mention, in illustration, those tranquil and innocent studies which are embraced under the various departments of natural history, as botany, horticulture, zoology, &c., studies which rarely fail to bring content and serenity to the mind, to soften asperities of feeling, and to render healthier, happier, and better, those who have become devoted to them.

Studies that exercise especially the reasoning faculties, whose aim is truth, and which are attended with positive and satisfactory results, inasmuch as they afford the most calm and permanent gratification, and favor, therefore, that harmony between the moral and physical nature which has been deemed so important to health and longevity, are most safe and salutary in their influence on body and mind. Hence it is that those engaged in the exact sciences, as the mathematician, the astronomer, the chemist, usually enjoy better health, firmer nerves, more uniform moral tranquillity, and, other things equal, I believe a longer term of existence than those whose pursuits are more connected with the imagination, as the poet, or writer of fictitious narrative. In these latter the deep and varying passions are more frequently awakened; a morbid sensibility is encouraged, and the flame of life, exposed to such continual and unnatural excitement, must burn more unequally and waste more rapidly. Who does not rise with more self-satisfaction, with a more calm, equable and healthful condition of the mind, from studies which exercise and instruct the understanding, than from the morbidly exciting works of romantic fiction? Poetry and romance, then, ever as they wander from the standard of nature, must become the more prejudicial in their effects on the moral and physical constitution. To illustrate this remark I need but refer to the writings of Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott.

Reason, the noblest gift of our nature, should always reign superior; should always hold in proper subjection the subordinate faculties. Whenever this rightful order in the

mental economy is subverted, whenever reason becomes enslaved to the fancy, and a sickly sentimentality of feeling usurps the place of the bold impressions of truth and reality, the vigor of the nerves decays, health languishes, and life is most commonly abbreviated.

"It is well known," says Dr. Pinel, "that certain professions conduce more than others to insanity, which are chiefly those in which the imagination is unceasingly or ardently engaged." He informs us that on consulting the registers of Bicetre, he found many priests and monks, as well as country people, who had been terrified into insanity by the anticipation of hell torments; also many artists, painters, sculptors, and musicians; some poets transported into madness by their own productions, and a great many advocates and attorneys. But no instances of persons whose professions require the habitual exercise of the judging faculty;—not one naturalist, nor a physician, nor a chemist, nor a geometrician.

Mr. Madden, an English writer, drew up tables to prove the influence of different studies on the longevity of authors and artists. At the head of these we find the natural philosophers with an average term of existence of seventy-five years. At the foot are the poets, who average but fiftyseven years, or eighteen less than those engaged in the natural sciences.* It must be admitted, however, that these data of Mr. Madden are exposed to so many sources of error that no great reliance can be placed upon the inferences drawn from them.

* Infirmities of Genius.

In conclusion of the present chapter, let me remark, what has been before implied, that all those mental avocations which are founded in benevolence, or whose end and aim are the good of mankind, being from their very nature associated with agreeable moral excitement, and but little mingled with the evil feelings of the heart, as envy, jealousy, hatred, must necessarily diffuse a kindly influence throughout the constistution.

CHAPTER V.

MENTAL LABORS ARE LESS FATIGUING AND INJURIOUS WHEN DIVERSIFIED THAN WHEN CONFINED TO SOME ONE PARTICULAR SUBJECT.-A TEMPERATE EXERCISE OF THE INTELLECT, UNITED WITH HABITUAL MUSCULAR ACTIVITY, IS MOST FAVORABLE TO THE GENERAL HEALTH OF THE SYSTEM AND TO LONGEVITY.-INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES VARIOUSLY AFFECTED BY DIFFERENT CONDITIONS OF THE BODILY ORGANS AND FUNCTIONS.

MENTAL labors judiciously varied will, in general, be far better sustained than those of a more uniform or concentrated character. As the same physical effort soon tires and exhausts the muscles concerned in it, so likewise will the same mental exertion produce a corresponding effect on the faculties it particularly engages. Hence the manifest relief we experience in changing our intellectual occupations—just, indeed, as we do in shifting our postures, or our exercises.

Close and undivided attention to any one object of real or fancied moment is apt to be followed, earlier or later, according to incidental circumstances, by pains and dizziness of the head, palpitations and irregularities of the heart's action, general lassitude and prostration of strength, dimin