s
to examine a species of melancholy that seems not to come within our
limits, but which occasionally seized upon him on his first waking in
the morning:--

"I have been considering what can be the reason why I always wake at a
certain hour in the morning, and always in very bad spirits--I may say,
in actual despair and despondency, in all respects--even of that which
pleased me over-night. In about an hour or two, this goes off, and I
compose myself either to sleep again, or at least, to quiet.... What is
it?--liver?... I suppose that it is all hypochondriasis."

What name shall we give to this physiological phenomenon? Was it
hypochondriasis, as he imagined? That Lord Byron's temperament, so
sensitive to all moral causes, so vulnerable to all atmospherical
influences, should likewise have contained a vein of hypochondriasis, is
not only possible, but likely. And were we as partial as we wish to be
just, there would certainly be no reason for denying it. Hypochondriasis
is an infirmity, not a fault. Lord Byron himself, when informed that
such a one complained of being called hypochondriacal, replied somewhat
to the following effect: "I can not conceive how a man in perfect good
health can feel wounded by being told that he is hypochondriacal, since
his face and his conduct refute the accusation. Were this accusation
ever to prove correct, to what does it amount, except to say that he has
a liver complaint?

"'I shall publish it before the whole world,' said the clever
Smelfungus. 'I should prefer telling my doctor,' said I. There is
nothing dishonorable in such an illness, which is more especially that
of people who are studious. It has been the illness of those who are
good, wise, clever, and even light-hearted. Regnard, Moliere, Johnson,
Gray, Burns, were all more or less given to it. Mendelssohn and Bayle
were often so afflicted with it, that they were obliged to have recourse
to toys, and to count the slates on the roof of the houses opposite, in
order to distract their attention. Johnson says, that oftentimes he
would have given a limb to raise his spirits."

But, nevertheless, when we seek truth for itself, and not for its
results, nor to make it help out a system, we must go to the bottom of
things, and reveal all we discover. Thus, after having spoken of this
physiological phenomenon, which he suspects to be hypochondriasis, Byron
adds, that he came upon him, accompanied with great thirst, that the
London