ment. At last she did so, gave some touches, and, hark! the harp, tuned alike, resounded in echo. The good girl was at first seized with a secret shuddering, but soon felt a kind of soft melancholy: she was firmly persuaded that the spirit of her lover was softly sweeping the strings of the instrument. The harpsichord, from this moment, constituted her only pleasure, as it afforded her the certainty that her lover was still hovering near her. One of those unfeeling men who want to know and clear up everything once entered her apartment. The girl instantly begged him to be quiet, for at that very moment the dear harp spoke most distinctly. Being informed of the amiable illusion which overcame her reason, he laughed, and, with a great display of learning, proved to her by experimental physics that all this was very natural. From that instant the maiden grew melancholy, drooped, and soon after died.

Ev. Truth is not always to be spoken, nor too much energy exerted in our treatment; for many a mad act, as it will be called, is resorted to as a relief.

Tirouane de Mericourt was wont to saturate her bedclothes with cold water, then lie down on them. Although an extreme remedy, it might yield her relief from burning pains. In the darker ages she would have been chained and scourged.

But from Marcus Donatus we read the following case of still more melancholy interest; another illustration of your question, dear Castaly:

"Vicentinus believed himself too large to pass one of his doorways. To dispel this illusion, it was resolved by his physician that he should be dragged through this aperture by force. This erroneous dictate was obeyed; but, as he was forced along, Vicentinus screamed out in agony that his

limbs were fractured, and the flesh torn from his bones. In this dreadful delusion, with terrific im

precations against his murderers, he died."

ABSTRACTION OF INTELLECT.

"I love to cope him in these sullen fits,

For then he's full of matter."-As You Like It.

ASTR. So that, in these cases, it is one faculty only which is interrupted, and not the combined intellect. But all the faculties but one may be deranged, may they not?

Ev. Yes. When the patient is insane on all points but one, we term it "Folie raisonnante.”

The very idiot, indeed, is often fond of most exact arrangement. The savage of Aveyron instantly put things in order when they were deranged.

White, in his "History of Selborne," records the propensities of an idiot, who, he says, was a very Merops-apiaster, or bee-bird. Honey-bees, humble-bees, and wasps were his prey: he would seize them, disarm them of their weapons, and suck their bodies for the sake of their honey-bags. Except in this adroitness, he had no understanding.

Pinel states the case of a mechanical genius who became insane, believing his head to be changed. Yet he invented mechanism of the most intricate combinations. We are informed, too, of a clergyman who was ever insane but when delivering his discourses from the pulpit.

I believe some parts of a national establishment were constructed from the plans of one of its inmates, who was, to all other intents and purposes, a madman.

Dr. Uwins once told me that some of the lines in his biographical work were written by a maniac

in the Hoxton Asylum, who was ever aware of the approach of his mania. These lines were thought to be among the best in the work.

Nay, idiots will sometimes reason, and work out a syllogism. I think Dr. Conolly relates a story of two who quarrelled, because each asserted that he was the Holy Ghost: at length, one decided that the other was the Holy Ghost, and that he could not be, because there were not two.

From this "folie raisonnante" there is an easy transition to that eccentricity which seems to be a set-off against the strength of mind of the deep thinker. The permanent derangement, however, we term insanity; the transient, eccentricity.

Marullus informs us that Bernard rode all day long by the Lemnian Lake, and at last inquired where he was. Archimedes rushed into the street naked from the bath, in an ecstasy at having discovered the alloy in the crown of Syracuse. Pinel tells us of a priest, who, in an abstract mood, felt no pain, although part of his body was burning.

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Viote," says Zimmerman, “during his fits of mathematical abstraction, would often remain sleepless and foodless for three days and nights."

And Plato thus records an instance of the abstraction of Socrates: "One morning he fell into one of these raptures of contemplation, and continued standing in the same posture till about noon. In the evening some Ionian soldiers went out, and, wrapping themselves up warm, lay down by him in the open field, to observe if he would continue in that posture all night, which he did until the morning, and as soon as the sun rose he saluted it and retired." This is mental abstraction with a vengeance!

ASTR. I will laugh with you at these oddities, Evelyn; yet not a whit less ludicrous are some of G & 2

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the vagaries of the learned Thebans of modern times. The abstractions of Newton were proverbial. It may not be true that he once inserted the little finger of a lady, whose hand he was holding, into his pipe instead of a tobacco-stopper, or that he made a small hole in his study door for the exit of a kitten by the side of a large one for the cat: it is certain, however, that he was once musing by his fire, with his knees close to the bars, when, finding his legs in danger of being grilled, he rang his bell, and, in a rage, desired his servant to take away the grate.

Dr. Hamilton, author of the acute "Essay on the National Debt," visited his college class in the morning with his own black silk stocking on one leg and his wife's white cotton on the other, and would sometimes occupy the whole class time by repeatedly removing the students' hats from his table, which they as often placed there. He would run against a cow, and beg madam's pardon, hoping he had not hurt her; and he would bow politely to his wife in the street without recognition. Yet, with all this, he would, at any time, directly converse on a scientific subject beautifully and eloquently.

Bacon, the sculptor, in a rich full dress, was finishing Howard's statue in St. Paul's, and, being cold, put on a ragged green and red shag waistcoat. In this trim he walked out to call on some ladies in Doctors' Commons. On his return, he told his son that they were sadly disposed to laugh about nothing. On being convinced, however, of his condition, he remembered the people he passed also giggled, and cried out, " He does it for a wager."

Hogarth paid a visit, in his new carriage, to the lord-mayor, and, after his audience, walked home in his state clothes, leaving his carriage at a private door of the Mansion House,

Dr. Harvest, of Ditton, a very learned man, would unconsciously allow his horse to be loosened from his grasp, and walk home with the bridle on his arm. He would walk into his church on Sun

day with his fowling-piece. He would write a letter, address it, and send it to three different persons. He lost a lady, the daughter of a bishop, as his wife, by going out to catch gudgeons, forgetting that it was the morning of his marriage ceremony; and he once threw a glass of wine at backgammon, and swallowed the dice!

After this we can no longer call caricatures the abstract philosopher who boiled his watch, and held the egg in his hand as the time-keeper; or the American, who put his candle to bed and blew himself out; or the lady who believed herself to be a post-letter, but waited patiently until the letter-sorter had examined her, to ascertain if she was single or double.

Ev. There is some hope of you now, dear Astrophel, for you are returning to matters of fact.

From the deep interest of dramatic scenes may spring the same apathy as that which you have illustrated. Dr. Fordyce writes of one who forgot he was sitting on a hard bench when Garrick brought in his dead Cordelia in his arms. And even the impression of fatigue and pain will often, for a time, leave us when we are gazing on architectural or picturesque beauty.

IDA. Are not those minds which are easily influenced by morbid sensibility, the minutiae of existence, often thus depressed into a condition somewhat resembling the moroseness of these half-idiots?

Ev. Ay, even the mighty minds of heroes and of monarchs. Queen Elizabeth was often wont to sit alone, in the dark, in sorrow and in tears. We know not if the fate of Essex or of Mary were the