vous system, affecting the mind, cannot be
considered as exempt from the operation of agencies that are admitted
to affect patients afflicted with other maladies. Dr. Winslow further
adds, that "an intelligent lady, who occupied for about five years the
position of matron in my establishment for insane ladies, has remarked
that she invariably observed among them a greater agitation when the
moon was at its full." A correspondent of "Notes and Queries" (2d
series, xii. 492) explains the apparent aggravated symptoms of madness
at the full moon by the fact that the insane are naturally more restless
on light than on dark nights, and that in consequence loss of sleep
makes them more excitable. We may note here, that in "Antony and
Cleopatra" (iv. 9) Enobarbus invokes the moon as the "sovereign mistress
of true melancholy."

The moisture of the moon is invariably noticed by Shakespeare. In
"Hamlet" (i. 1) Horatio tells how

"the moist star,
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse."

In "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (ii. 1) Titania says:

"Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound."

And in "The Winter's Tale" (i. 2) Polixenes commences by saying how:

"Nine changes of the watery star hath been
The shepherd's note, since we have left our throne
Without a burthen."

We may compare, too, the words of Enobarbus in "Antony and Cleopatra"
(iv. 9), who, after addressing the moon, says: "The poisonous damp of
night disponge upon me." And once more, in "Romeo and Juliet" (i. 4), we
read of the "moonshine's watery beams."

The same idea is frequently found in old writers. Thus, for instance, in
Newton's "Direction for the Health of Magistrates and Studentes" (1574),
we are told that "the moone is ladye of moisture." Bartholomaeus, in "De
Proprietate Rerum," describes the moon as "mother of all humours,
minister and ladye of the sea."[117] In Lydgate's prologue to his "Story
of Thebes" there are two lines not unlike those in "A Midsummer-Night's
Dream," already quoted:

"Of Lucina the moone, moist and pale,
That many shoure fro heaven made availe."

[117] See Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 116.

Of course, the moon is thus spoken of as governing the tides, and from
its supposed influence on the weather.[118] In "1 He