he covered the maid's father Agamemnon's head with a veil, and
left it to every spectator to conceive what he would himself; for that true
passion and sorrow in _summo gradu_, such as his was, could not by any art
be deciphered. What he did in his picture, I will do in describing the
symptoms of despair; imagine what thou canst, fear, sorrow, furies, grief,
pain, terror, anger, dismal, ghastly, tedious, irksome, &c. it is not
sufficient, it comes far short, no tongue can tell, no heart conceive it.
'Tis an epitome of hell, an extract, a quintessence, a compound, a mixture
of all feral maladies, tyrannical tortures, plagues, and perplexities.
There is no sickness almost but physic provideth a remedy for it; to every
sore chirurgery will provide a slave; friendship helps poverty; hope of
liberty easeth imprisonment; suit and favour revoke banishment; authority
and time wear away reproach: but what physic, what chirurgery, what wealth,
favour, authority can relieve, bear out, assuage, or expel a troubled
conscience? A quiet mind cureth all them, but all they cannot comfort a
distressed soul: who can put to silence the voice of desperation? All that
is single in other melancholy, _Horribile, dirum, pestilens, atrox, ferum_,
concur in this, it is more than melancholy in the highest degree; a burning
fever of the soul; so mad, saith [6737]Jacchinus, by this misery; fear,
sorrow, and despair, he puts for ordinary symptoms of melancholy. They are
in great pain and horror of mind, distraction of soul, restless, full of
continual fears, cares, torments, anxieties, they can neither eat, drink,
nor sleep for them, take no rest,

[6738] "Perpetua impietas, nec mensae tempore cessat,
Exagitat vesana quies, somnique furentes."

"Neither at bed, nor yet at board,
Will any rest despair afford."

Fear takes away their content, and dries the blood, wasteth the marrow,
alters their countenance, "even in their greatest delights, singing,
dancing, dalliance, they are still" (saith [6739]Lemnius) "tortured in
their souls." It consumes them to nought, "I am like a pelican in the
wilderness (saith David of himself, temporally afflicted), an owl, because
of thine indignation," Psalm cii. 8, 10, and Psalm lv. 4. "My heart
trembleth within me, and the terrors of death have come upon me; fear and
trembling are come upon me, &c. at death's door," Psalm cvii. 18. "Their
soul abhors all manner of meats." Their [6740]sleep is (i