Page:Poems of Anne Countess of Winchilsea 1903.djvu/47

 INTRODUCTION xliii ���out It comforts the Nerves, helps the Gout �strengthens broken Bones takes away the swelling �and pains of the Spleen .... and cures Aches and Cramps in any part of the body whatsoever." But even this concen- trated apothecary's shop proved unavailing in Lady Winchil- sea's case. Neither Tunbridge nor Astrop gave her the branch of healing spleenwort with which Pope's Umbriel safely penetrated to the cave of the gloomy goddess. Her poem on The Spleen is of the first-hand, naturalistic order. It has none of the glittering generalities born of vague knowl- edge. So full and accurate is its account of symptoms that it achieved prompt professional recognition. Dr. Stukeley published it in his treatise on the spleen, for the purpose, as he said, of helping out his own description. Lady Win- chilsea admits that the spleen is often counterfeited, but maintains that the real disease is of the gravest sort. The sufferer is afflicted by insomnia or by boding dreams and terrifying visions. There are successive moods of stupid discontent, wild anger, panic fear. Spleen blights the ablest minds with self-doubt. It enters the realm of religion and perplexes men with endless, foolish scruples. It fills the heart with fancied griefs. It creates an abnormal love of solitude. Various early poems, as On Grief, To Sleep, To Melancholy, express in other terms the extreme depression of spirits against which the sufferer from the spleen had to contend. Ardelia addresses Melancholy as her " old invet'- rate foe," who in spite of mirth, music, poetry and friendship, in spite even of " the Indian leaf and parch'd eastern Berry" still holds his throne in her darkened heart. In despairing surrender she exclaims: �To thee, great Monarch, I submitt, �Thy Sables and thy Cypress bring, �I own thy Pow'r, I own thee King, �Thy title in my heart is writt, �And till that breaks I ne'er shall freedom gett. ��� �