Page:The Psychology of Shakespeare.pdf/221

206 of the world would lose much of its point if it came from the lips of an undoubted lunatic. This objection, however, loses somewhat of its validity, when it is remembered that in Lear,

Shakespeare actually has put such satire in the mouth of the maddest of his characters, during the height of the disease; and that in his devotion to the truth of nature he would

certainly have represented such misanthropy, as a monstrous growth of the mind, if it were so. Is it possible even in a state of disease? is it actually met with ? Undoubtedly, yes. Making allowance for the difference between the adorned descriptions of poetry and plain matter of fact, putting on one side the power of eloquent declamation, which belongs indeed not to the character, but

to the author, the professed misanthrope in word and in deed is met with among the insane, and, as I think, among the insane only. This malignant and inhuman passion, for such it is, takes divers forms.

Sometimes it is mere motive

less dislike; every one is obnoxious with or without cause, like Dr. Fell, in the adage. This is the malignity of Apemantus expressing itself in conduct, rather than in frank confession. . The explanation of it is best given by Timon himself that, “Ira brevis furor est, But this man's always angry.”

If anger be identical with madness, except in its duration, this exception is here excepted, and this form of madness may be said to be a life-long and universal anger.

Another form of in

sanity, not uncommon in and out of lunatic asylums, approaches more nearly to the misanthropy of Timon ; namely, that form of chronic mental disease, I know not whether to call it mania or melancholia, which constantly torments itself and others

by attributing evil motives, not like Timon's to all ranks and classes of society, but to every individual with whom the unhappy being comes in contact. The poetical misanthropy of Timon is generalised, and cannot be said to point at any