1834.]

Longevity of Literary Men.

7

In regard to the effect of different pursuits, it is a striking fact, that the mere triflers in literature, have suffered more from its labors than its greatest benefactors. It appears that Philosophers have been most remarkable for longevity, and Poets the most short-lived among authors. Astronomers seem to have exceeded all other Natural Philosophers in the duration of life.

"In the Time's Telescope for 1833, there is a list of all the eminent Astronomers, from Thales to those of the last century; and out of eightyfive only twentyfive had died of the age of sixty, five had lived to between ninety and a hundred; eighteen between eighty and ninety; twentyfive between seventy and eighty; seventeen between sixty and seventy; ten between fifty and sixty; five between forty and fifty; and four between thirty and forty. In no other pursuit does the biography of men of genius exhibit a longevity at all to be compared to this. No other science, indeed, tends so powerfully to raise the mind above those trivial vexations, and petty miseries of life, which make the great amount of human evil.'

Authors on Revealed Religion, and Philologists occupy the middle point of the scale. Mr Madden remarks, that those pursuits in which the imagination is largely exerted, are least favorable to longevity. While this is unquestionably true, we are not inclined to ascribe it chiefly to this cause. So far as our own experience, or our knowledge of physiology can guide us, that occupation is most exhausting, which produces most sensation, either nervous or intellectual. In conducting the instruction of the deaf and dumb, we found the mimic exhibition of feeling, and the excitement it produced, incomparably more exhausting, than any amount of intellectual labor in examining or explaining mere science, provided there was nothing to call forth personal anxiety or apprehension, and we could ascribe to no other cause, the peculiarly prostrating influence of this occupation. An eminent musician, in feeble health, informed us, that too much use of a piano often exhausted him by the nervous excitement it produced; the harmonica or musical glasses, must be used with great care on this account.

On this ground, the wide difference in the duration of life between Natural Philosophers and Poets; between Moral Philosophers and Dramatists; Jurists and Novelists; Painters and Musicians, is easily explained. Could the fictions which rouse every feeling of the reader, and have produced every degree of nervous convulsion, from the mere sob to the hysteric, or the fainting fit, have been created without agitating every nerve of the author, and exciting him sometimes even to phrenzy ? Could they have been imagined, and executed, without a corresponding inroad upon the constitution?

We cannot pass by the obvious bearing of this fact upon the reading of the young. Works of fiction are usually put into their hands as the means of amusement, or at least, they are suffered to

8

Works of Fiction-Premature Cultivation.

[Jan.

be thus employed. But if these remarks be just, they require the full energies of the mind; for surely, the work, which, from its very nature, shortens the life of its author, by the excitement it produces, can scarcely relax the mind of the reader, who is capable of being deeply interested in it, and of reading every scene, and feeling every emotion. Indeed, we can well recollect that the stolen hours which we passed in this gratification, were far more exhausting than those which we spent in the hard study of the school; and we have never succeeded in making it a relaxation from severe thought, unless when the story was so familiar that it had lost its keenest interest, or when it could draw off the mind, for a time, from intense pain. The fact that deists, (as most of those here spoken of as Authors on Natural Religion' are,) should stand at an opposite and lower extreme of the scale, is a striking evidence that Christianity is 'profitable to the life that now is.'

Mr Madden presents in this connection the pernicious influence of premature cultivation, in the language of Tissot.

'The effects of study vary,' says this author, according to the age at which it is commenced. Long continued application kills the youthful energies. I have seen children full of spirit attacked by this literary mania beyond their years; and I have foreseen with grief, the lot which awaited them. They commenced by being prodigies; and they ended by becoming stupid! The season of youth is consecrated to the exercise of the body, which strengthens it, and not to study, which debilitates and prevents its growth. Nature can never successfully carry on two rapid developments at the same time. When the growth of intellect is too prompt, its faculties too early developed, and mental application is permitted proportioned to this development, the body receives no part of it, because the nerves cease to contribute to its energies; the victim becomes exhausted, and eventually dies of some insidious malady. The parents and guardians who encourage or require this forced application, treat their pupils as gardeners do their plants, who, in trying to produce the first rarities of the season, sacrifice some plants, to force others to put forth fruit and flowers, which are always of short duration, and are inferior, in every respect, to those which come to their maturity at a proper season."

The examples of precocity which are presented, show the danger to the constitution, in a manner which we should think would destroy the mistaken anxiety, and check the cruel efforts of parents to secure it.

'Moore says, the five most remarkable instances of early authorship, are those of Pope, Congreve, Churchill, Chatterton, and Byron. "The first of these died in his fiftysixth year; the second in his fiftyeighth; the third in his thirty fourth; the sleepless boy' committed suicide in his eighteenth ; and Byron died in his thirtyseventh year."

'Mozart, at the age of three years, began to display astonishing abilities for music, and in the two following years, composed some trifling pieces, which his father carefully preserved; and like all prodigies, his career was a short one; he died at the age of thirtysix. Tasso, from infancy, exhibited such quickness of understanding, that at the age of five he was

1834.]

Infirmities and Dangers of Students.

9

sent to a Jesuit Academy, and two years afterwards recited verses and orations of his own composition, he died at fiftyone. Dermody was employed by his father, who was a school-master, as an assistant in teaching the Latin, and Greek languages, in his ninth year; he died at twentyseven. The American prodigy, Lucretia Davidson, was another melancholy instance of precocious genius, and early death. Keats wrote several pieces before he was fifteen, and only reached his twenty fifth year. The ardor of Dante's temperament, we are told, was manifested in his childhood. The lady he celebrated in his poems, under the name of Beatrice, he fell in love with at the age of ten, and his enthusiasm terminated with life at fiftysix. Schiller, at the age of fourteen, was the author of an epic poem. He died at fortysix. Cowley published a collection of his juvenile poems, called 'Poetical Blossoms,' at sixteen, and died at sixtynine.

'But it would be useless to enumerate instances in proof of the assertion, that the earlier the development of the mental faculties, the more speedy the decay of the bodily powers.'

The chapter on the influence of literary habits upon the character and health, deserve the perusal of all who censure or ridicule those who for their sake, and for their children, confine themselves to the study, or the school-room, because they have not the ruggedness of health, or the firmness of nerve which belongs to those who are breathing the free air, and using incessant and invigorating exercise. How slight,' remarks our author, are those alterations in health—almost imperceptible to the ordinary observer — which have produced or aggravated the gravest mental infirmities.' No one thinks of reproaching the sleepy child or the convalescent invalid for his peevishness, as an act of his will; and yet how few form any just estimate of the influence of disease and suffering, often far greater, upon those who are enabled only by the energy of the will to do the common business of life! How often do they reproach them for the diseased feelings which they have not been. able to surmount, rather than accord that praise which they deserve, on account of those which they have overcome.

But this chapter contains a serious warning to all who commit literary suicide. The intemperate man is not excused for the consequences of his conduct, because he was intoxicated. On the same ground, says Mr Madden, (and we quote for ourselves as well as our readers,) –

"The literary man who indulges in habits prejudicial to his health, cannot be supposed ignorant of the effects that must arise from excessive application; and who can say he is guiltless of the infirmities he drags upon him?

The studious man sets out with stealing an hour or two from his ordinary repose, sometimes perhaps more; and finishes by devoting whole nights to his pursuits. But this night work leads to exhaustion, and the universal sense of sinking in every organ that accompanies it, suggests the use of stimulants, most probably of wine; alcohol, however, in some shape or other. And what is the result? Why, the existence that is passed in

10

Abuses of Literary Pursuits.

[Jan.

a constant circle of excitement and exhaustion, is shortened, or rendered miserable by such alternations, and the victim becomes accessary to his own sufferings.'

'In a word, if the literary man consume his strength and spirits in his study, forego all necessary exercise, keep his mind continually on the stretch, and even at his meals deprive the digestive organs of that nervous energy which is then essential to their healthy action; if the proteiform symptoms of dyspepsia at last make their appearance, and the innumerable anomalous sufferings which, under the name of nervous and stomachic ailments, derange the viscera, and rack the joints of the invalid; if by constant application, the blood is continually determined to the brain, and the calibre of the vessels enlarged to the extent of causing pressure or effusion in that vital organ; in any case, if the mischief there is allowed to proceed slowly and steadily, perhaps for years, (as in the case of Swift) giving rise to a long train of nervous miseries-to hypochondria in its gloomiest form, or mania in its wildest mood, or paralysis in the expressionless aspect of fatuity; (that frequent termination of the literary career ;) who can deny that the sufferer has, in a great measure, drawn the evil on himself; but who will not admit that his infirmities of mind and body are entitled to indulgence and compassion?'

The advantages of literary pursuits,' we think, might be better exhibited. The abuses' of study are justly said to be its only disadvantages.' Moderation in all things (Ne quid nimis) would render this like every other occupation and enjoyment for which the Creator has qualified us, a source of increased happiness, instead of painful suffering, and humiliating injury to the character. There can be no doubt, that even the bodily health of those who plod on without a thought in the day labor of life, would be improved by exercise of the brain; and that the perfection of the animal frame can never be fully attained, while so important an organ is left in a torpid state. To use it to excess, however, is an offence, although less brutal, no less real or ruinous, than to gorge the stomach with gluttony, or to wear out the frame with licentiousness. We do not possess a faculty, or an organ which is not necessary to make us perfect beings, or whose proper use is not a means of happiness and usefulness, to ourselves, and to others. There is not one which it is not wrong and dangerous to neglect. It is a direct rebellion against the laws of Providence, to attempt to cultivate the intellect to the neglect or destruction of the affections and appetites, which unite us to our fellow-men, or to suffer any other idol to take the place of the proper objects of attachment. To our readers, we trust we need say nothing of the danger of sensual excess; but we fear many of them may need to be warned of the danger of intellectual excess; and perhaps we cannot do it more effectually than by referring to the book before us, as an evidence that the latter species of indulgence leads almost directly to the former.

The strong temptation to resort to stimulants, arising from intellectual exhaustion, has already been alluded to. More than one sad example in this volume shows, that the exhaustion and craving for

1834.]

Moral Evils of Excessive Study.

11

some high excitement produced by excessive literary effort, produces a morbid state of the animal organs and propensities, which lead to gluttony and intemperance, and urge, even those whom principle ought to restrain, to wild and licentious indulgence. The prince of Moralists,' Johnson, was led into all these excesses; while he was deprived of the light and hope and peace, which his noble and expanded views of the value of moral truth placed within his reach.

Pope loved mcat highly seasoned, and if he sat down to a variety of dishes, he would oppress his stomach by repletion, and though he seemed to be angry when a dram was offered him, he did not forbear to drink it.' Dr King his cotemporary and friend says,. that he certainly hastened his death by improper indulgence of appetite. The intemperance of Burns is too well known. Cowley died of the consequences of a drunken fit. Dryden is said to have hastened his end by intemperance. Parnel,' says Pope, was a great follower of drams, and strangely open and scandalous in his debaucheries.' 'Churchill was found drunk on a dunghill,' and Prior was not more remarkable for his temperance. Byron 'the lofty minded Byron' did not even limit himself to the 'gentlemanly liquors,' but sought inspiration for his muse' in the bottle of gin Such are the results of intellect excessively cultivated, and unbaptized by the pervading influence of religion.

Nor can even religious influence always resist the overwhelming power of passion and appetite in a diseased constitution. The oppressed body often takes a dreadful revenge on the tyrannising mind, and urges its oppressor on to criminal acts, by the very excitement of feeling which was intended to destroy its legitimate influence, and paralyze the appetites which the Creator has bestowed for wise purposes. The records of the hermitage and the convent would often furnish evidence of this. The history of superstition and fanaticism in Europe presents many instances, in which base men have employed even religious influences, to excite the nerves to that point in which reason staggers, and feeling predominates, that they might prepare their victims for the most horrid cruelty, or the most brutal sensuality.

But the votaries of literature should also remember, that by excessive effort they destroy the very power which they thus seek to render supreme. Surely,' says Ficinus as quoted by Mr Madden, 'scholars are the most foolish men in the world. Öther men look to their tools. A painter will wash his pencils, a smith will look to his hammer, and a husbandınan will mind his plough iron, a huntsman will have a care of his hound, a musician of his lute. Scholars

*See, Christian Spectator for 1830, Vol. II, p. 104..