Having thus narrowed the field to a class, I shall now select an individual, and that individual shall be one with whom I have had many opportunities of becoming well acquainted. Curious reader, it is not you, nor your brother Robert, nor your uncle Andrew, nor any, so far as I know, of your kindred--it is "myself." And how has enthusiasm wrought in me? That I am just going to tell you. It has made me, in the first place, miserable--most miserable; and I'll tell you how. I took it into my head, when a boy of about eight or nine years of age, that my mother--my only living parent--was mortal; nay, that she was so old and infirm--though she was not more than fifty, and in perfect health--that she would drop down dead, even before my eyes. I followed her wherever she went; held on by her apron-string, roaring aloud most mournfully, and shedding, besides, a world of tears. In vain did my kind mother endeavour to rally me, to reason me, to scold me, and even to chastise me, out of my dream: it had taken such hold of my imagination, that, sleeping or waking, it was there. When my mother travelled anywhere abroad, I was sure to be after her, like a domestic cur. When she went to offer up her private oblations to a throne of mercy, I crept in under her plaid, and heard every audible aspiration. In my sleep she was still before me as I had seen my grandmother--the lips parted, the eyes open, and set in night. It was horrible. I started into real life, and wept aloud. I rushed into my mother's apartment, felt her face all over, and cried bitterly. Reader, have you always been made of pot-mettle? Have you never experienced any such nervous enthusiasm as this? Have you been at all times a child of realities--a very steady, thinking, prudent person; slept like a top, ate like a raven, and talked to the amazement even of the minister himself? You may be a steady, good person now. You may even be married, with a family of thirteen children. You may have succeeded in the world, and feathered your nest. You may have presided well at various public dinners, and
"Never wrote One line which, dying, you would wish to blot;"
and for this simple and best of all reasons, that you have never written, as far as the public is concerned, any lines at all. You may be a sound-headed lawyer, a calculating merchant, an honest shopkeeper, or, what is still more commendable, because more rare, an honest judge. You may sole shoes or make greatcoats to a nicety--fabricate chairs, or nails, or pins, or periwigs, to a thought; but you are no enthusiast. Do you see that poor maniac, who is just receiving a visit from his mother in his cell, whose eyes are turned up in wild uproar to the roof of his dungeon, and who, in the damp icicles, is apostrophising sun, moon, and stars, Venus, Jupiter, and Aldubaran? That emaciated form of scarcely twenty years of age, which a weeping mother clasps, and whom a frenzied son convulsively strains to his bare and fleshless breast--that is Ferguson, the poet, the prince of enthusiasts--he at whose genius Burns lighted that torch which has filled the world with light. Do you mark that form sitting amongst the sands of Syracuse? The city is taken by the Roman armies. The enemy are within the walls; pillage and murder are the order of the hour. But what is that to him?--he is only an enthusiast. The soldier has challenged him to surrender; his sword is uplifted, and the challenge is repeated. He heeds it not; the sword descends--and the greatest mathematician, the most complete enthusiast, which the world has ever seen, lies before you, a gashed and mangled corpse. The world--its wonders, its atoms, its various formations!--the laws--the eternal laws of its construction and form!--there is one who sung sweetly--oh, how divinely! There is one who sung sublimely--yes, as one overpowered with the spirit of Him who said, "Let there be light, and there was light;" but the cord which was overstrained is snapped, and the bow is unstrung; the pressure upon the delicate fibres of the brain has been too much, and the building of God has given way. Poor Lucretius! the disease of which thou didst expire was "enthusiasm."