languor, and the oppression. Like that disappointing book in Patmos;
or, like the comings on of melancholy, described by Burton, doth
music make her first insinuating approaches:--"Most pleasant it is
to such as are melancholy given, to walk alone in some solitary
grove, betwixt wood and water, by some brook side, and to meditate
upon some delightsome and pleasant subject, which shall affect him
most, _amabilis insania_, and _mentis gratissimus error_. A most
incomparable delight to build castles in the air, to go smiling to
themselves, acting an infinite variety of parts, which they suppose,
and strongly imagine, they act, or that they see done.--So delightsome
these toys at first, they could spend whole days and nights without
sleep, even whole years in such contemplations, and fantastical
meditations, which are like so many dreams, and will hardly be drawn
from them--winding and unwinding themselves as so many clocks, and
still pleasing their humours, until at last the SCENE TURNS UPON A
SUDDEN, and they being now habitated to such meditations and solitary
places, can endure no company, can think of nothing but harsh and
distasteful subjects. Fear, sorrow, suspicion, _subrusticus pudor_,
discontent, cares, and weariness of life, surprise them on a sudden,
and they can think of nothing else: continually suspecting, no sooner
are their eyes open, but this infernal plague of melancholy seizeth on
them, and terrifies their souls, representing some dismal object to
their minds; which now, by no means, no labour, no persuasions they
can avoid, they cannot be rid of it, they cannot resist."

Something like this "SCENE-TURNING" I have experienced at the evening
parties, at the house of my good Catholic friend _Nov----_; who, by
the aid of a capital organ, himself the most finished of players,
converts his drawing-room into a chapel, his week days into Sundays,
and these latter into minor heavens.[1]