LETTER XXXV.

To the Reverend Father VINCENZO SPINELLO at Rome.

I

Dear Sir,

have often told you, that this island teems

with more characters, than are to be found in any nation upon earth, and probably as many as are upon the face of the globe. Every other nation has fomething which characterizes its people, and makes it vifibly belong to one government; but in England the idea of liberty has reduced the minds of the inhabitants to a ftate of nature, as near as poffible: this arifes from the belief, that in religion as in govern ment, a man is to think and act for himself ; which has taken off all reftaint.

INDEED, this is not the avow'd belief of all ranks of people: thofe of the established church allow, that the king has a right to decide and determine in matters relating to religion; that he has prerogatives and power, which are truly

his; and yet the miniftry of late years, who have been all Whigs in politics, and of the establish'd religion in matters of faith, if of any, (except one prefbyterian or two, flipt into high places) have diminish'd the power of the one, and tacitly difavowed the authority of the other, tho' the government has not been changed by any law whatever.

THIS prevailing opinion in the two most effential confiderations of life, has borne down all other minuter influences; there is no uniform, establish'd behaviour amongst the people in this kingdom, as you fee in other places: The very moment an Englishman becomes rich enough to think himself independent, his first pleafure is, to fhew that he does not care à fixpence for any one, by his behaviour and converfation, and lets himself loofe to the influence of his ruling whimfy: I fpeak now of all thofe, who rife to great fortunes of their own acquiring: by this means in a London coffee-house, a place for fociety and conversation, you see in their faces that these men are lefs fociable creatures, if they are filent, than in the inhabitants of Paris, as they walk the streets; a ftern negative spreading itself over the countenances of the firft, and a

:

look of invitation on those of the latter if they

fpeak, it is apparently to please themselves; the French, tho' with the fame defign, yet appear ing to please others.

It is in this ifle an inviolable maxim, that every man of fortune has a right to spend his money as he pleases by this it appears, that neither custom nor government influencing the behaviour of these people, there are few that diffuse their money as they ought, but each man's prevailing whim decides of him in all things.

FROM this principle it naturally happens that one is all horfe-jockey, another fox-hunter this up to the ears in play, another eternally in ta verns and brothels; one rambling from place to place at an expence above his income; this buys pictures, nick-nacks and vértu, till he has not a house to put them in, and that purchases a feat in parliament for seven years at the price of half his eftate (the whole of which was not before that time large enough for his expences) at the expiration of which term, he finds himself disappointed in his expectations, and without an acre of land.

If Mr. Locke's opinion of madness and idiotism are juft, these men ought to come under one or other of thefe definitions. Madmen put wrong ideas together, and fo make wrong propofitions, but argue and reafon right from them; but idiots make very few propofitions, and reafon scarce at all: to which of thefe does the greatest number belong?

METHINKS this definition of madnefs is extremely imperfect, because almost all Englishmen, and philosophers who differ from one ananother, must come under that denomination in each other's opinion; thus Descartes, who would explain all the motions of the planets by tourbillons, reafon'd very well from that pro'position, tho' it was false, and yet I believe Sir Ifaac Newton never imagined him a madman; and Defcartes, in like manner, if he had lived at the time of Sir Ifaac, would not have conceived that great man a lunatic, tho' he had never been converted to his doctrines.

I HAVE often imagined, that the infide of the head of a man in his fenfes, and that of a

madman, are not fo totally different, as we are apt to imagine if another perfon could fee and write down all the ideas which pass in our brains in a week; the refolutions, irrefolutions, hopes, fears, caftle-buildings, reafonings, &c. ; the fon himself, from whom the picture was drawn, forgetting what had paffed in his mind, would declare thefe were the reveries of a lunatic.

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MADNESS then feems to confift in believ-ing all thofe things to be realities, which the mind images to itself, and acting in consequence of it; the latter part makes the effential difference. For, tho a man fhould believe himself a king, and never behave in confequence of that imaginary character, he would not be deem'd a madman; in like manner one, whofe actions were directed with the air and manner of a sovereign, tho' he did not believe himself a king, would yet be confider'd as a man who had loft his reafon. Thus, it is the behaviour which conftitutes the real idea of madness, and the concealment of our thoughts the man of fenfe: in this nation however, the actions of men must be very extraordinary, before the denomination of lunacy can be imputed to them.

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