GREEN. BORN, 1696-DIED, 1737. THE author of the Spleen, a poem admired by Pope, and quoted by Johnson, was a clerk in the customhouse, and had been bred a quaker. He was subject to low spirits, and warded them off by wit and good sense. Something of the quaker may be observable in the stiffness of his versification, and its excessive endeavours to be succinct. His style has also the fault of being occasionally obscure; and his wit is sometimes more laboured than finished. But all that he says is worth attending to. His thoughts are the result of his own feeling and experience; his opinions rational and cheerful, if not very lofty; his warnings against meddling with superhuman mysteries admirable; and he is remarkable for the brevity and originality of his similes. He is of the school of Butler; and it may be affirmed of him as a rare honour, that no man since Butler has put so much wit and reflection into the same compass of lines. There is an edition of Green's poems by Dr. Aikin, which deserves to be the companion of all who suffer as the author did, and who have sense enough to wish to relieve their sufferings by the like exercise of their reason. In printing the following extracts I have not adopted the asterisks commonly employed for the purpose of implying omission. I always use them unwillingly, on account of the fragmentary air they give to the passages; and the paragraphs closed up so well together in the present instance, that I was tempted to waive them. But the circumstance is mentioned in order to prevent a false conclusion. REMEDIES FOR THE SPLEEN.1 To cure the mind's wrong bias, spleen, Some hilly walks: all, exercise ; Fling but a stone, the giant dies. Laugh and be well. Monkeys have been And kittens, if the humour hit, If spleen fogs rise at close of day, In rainy days keep double guard, To enterprise a work of wit, I dress my face with studious looks, And on the drowning world remark; Then seek good-humour'd tavern chums, Or with the merry fellows quaff, And laugh aloud with them that laugh; Or drink a joco-serious cup With souls who 've took their freedom up; And let my mind, beguil'd by talk, In Epicurus' garden walk, Who thought it heav'n to be serene; Sometimes I dress, with women sit, And chat away the gloomy fit; Permit, ye fair, your idol-form, Which e'en the coldest heart can warm, May with its beauties grace my line, Which fiend-like, flies the magic ring Your touch, which gives to feeling bliss, We gaze, and see the smiling loves, And raptur'd fix in such a face Love's mercy-seat and throne of grace. True miracle, and fairly done By heads which are ador'd while on.2 Such thoughts as love the gloom of night, I close examine by the light; For who, though brib'd by gain to lie, That superstition mayn't create, And club its ills with those of fate, I many a notion take to task, Made dreadful by its visor mask. Thus scruple, spasm of the mind, Is cur'd, and certainty I find; Since optic reason shows me plain, I dreaded spectres of the brain; And legendary fears are gone, Though in tenacious childhood sown. Thus in opinions. I commence Freeholder in the proper sense, And neither suit nor service do, Nor homage to pretenders show, Who boast themselves, by spurious roll, Lords of the manor of the soul; Preferring sense, from chin that's bare, To nonsense thron'd in whisker'd hair. Thus, then, I steer my bark, and sail On even keel with gentle gale; At helm I make my reason sit, My crew of passions all submit. If dark and blust'ring prove some nights, |