Waverley, and instantly doff'd his cap, with many grotesque signals of surprise, respect, and salutation. Edward, though with little hope of receiving an answer to any constant question, requested to know whether Mr. Bradwardine were at home, or where he could find any of the domestics. The questioned party replied, and, like the witch of Thalaba, still his speech was song': The knight's to the mountain His bugle to wind; The bower of Burd Ellen Has moss on the floor, That the step of Lord William 6 This conveyed no information, and Edward, repeating his queries, received a rapid answer, in which, from the haste and peculiarity of the dialect, the word butler' was alone intelligible." The members of Davie's class were rarely elevated to the lady's bowers, and the occasions when they were admitted to the parlour in order to amuse the laird by their oddities, whimsicalities, and real humour, must be relegated to an earlier period; but they were still tolerated in the kitchen to turn the roast, in the butler's pantry to clean the silver, as loiterers in the stable-yard, or even to groom the horses, as competent to clip salmon, to carry the sportsman's game, or, as in the present instance, to act in the humble capacity as master of the hounds. Accordingly, in the present instance, the extemporised whipper-in is found "in a grassy vale," leading two very tall staghounds, and presiding over half-adozen curs, and about as many bare-headed boys, who, to procure the chosen distinction of attending on the chase, had not failed to tickle his ears with the dulcet appellation of Maister Gellatley, though probably all and each had hooted him on former occasions in the character of "daft Davie." next scene in which this graft of cleverness, cunning, and domestic attachment upon congenital imbecility is represented, rises thus before us, "Ou ay, sir, I'll brander the moor-fowl that John Heatherblutter brought in this morning; and ye see puir Davie's roasting the black hen's eggs. I daur say, Mr. Wauverley, ye never ken'd that a' the eggs that were sae weel roasted at supper in the Ha'house were aye turned by our Davie?—there's no the like o' him ony gate for poutering wi' his fingers amang the het peat-ashes and roasting eggs.' Davie all this while lay with his nose almost in the fire, nuzzling The among the ashes, kicking his heels, mumbling to himself, turning the eggs as they lay in the hot embers, as if to confute the proverb that there goes reason to roasting of eggs,' and justify the eulogium which poor Janet poured out upon 6 Him whom she loved, her idiot boy. 'Davie's no sae silly as folk tak' him for, Mr. Wauverley; he wadna hae brought you here unless he had ken'd ye was a friend to his honour; indeed, the very dogs ken'd ye, Mr. Wauverley, for ye was aye kind to beast and body."" The final appearance of the imbecile was When war its deadly blast had blown, and the baronial hall and its trim, well-ordered terraces and approaches had suffered from the ravages of the spoiler and the enemy. 66 While, plunged in the sad reflections which the scene excited, Waverley was looking around for some one who might explain the fate of the inhabitants, he heard a voice from the interior of the building, singing in well-remembered accents an old Scottish song: They came upon us in the night, And brake my bower and slew my knight: And left us in extremitie. They slew my knight, to me sae dear; They slew my knight, and drave his gear; 'Alas!' thought Edward, is it thou? Poor helpless being, art thou alone left, to gibber and moan, and fill with thy wild and unconnected scraps of minstrelsy the halls that protected thee?' He then called, first low, and then louder, Davie— Davie Gellatley!' 6 "The poor simpleton showed himself from among the ruins of a sort of greenhouse, that once terminated what was called the terrace-walk but, at first sight of a stranger, retreated as if in terror. Waverley, remembering his habits, began to whistle a tune to which he was partial, which Davie had expressed great pleasure in listening to, and had picked up from him by ear. Our hero's minstrelsy no more equalled that of Blondel than poor Davie resembled Coeur-de-Lion, but the melody had the same effect of producing recognition. Davie again stole from his lurking-place, but timidly, while Waverley, afraid of frightening him, stood making the most encouraging signals he could devise. It's his ghaist,' mut tered Davie; yet, coming nearer, he seemed to acknowledge his living acquaintance. The poor fool himself appeared the ghost of what he had been. The peculiar dress in which he had been attired in better days, showed only miserable rags of its whimsical finery, the lack of which was oddly supplied by the remnants of tapestried hangings, window curtains, and shreds of pictures, with which he had bedizened his tatters. His face, too, had lost its vacant and careless air, and the poor creature looked hollowed-eyed, meagre, half-starved, and nervous to a pitiable degree. After long hesitation he at length approached Waverley with some confidence, stared him sadly in the face, and said, 'A' dead and gane-a' dead and gane!' "Who are dead?' said Waverley, forgetting the incapacity of Davie to hold any connected discourse. “Baron—and Bailie-and Saunders Saunderson-and Lady Rose, that sang sae sweet-A' dead and gane-dead, and gane!' Exception might be taken to the faculty and fertility of the invention or memory of this half-witted and educated creature in pouring forth, as an improvisatore might have done, these scraps of national ballads and ditties; but the incident demonstrates how thoroughly the artist had made himself acquainted with all the possible characteristics and even requirements of the class, and how elaborately he had depicted this specimen, so that it might be at once typical, attractive, and in harmony with the surroundings. Examples of solitary talents springing from a general waste of mind are not unique. Besides the enormous accumulation of poetical and other literary compositions which might be found by those curious in such matters in the separate works which have issued from the press, in various asylums, and especially in the periodicals which have appeared from the same source, especially in America and Scotland, one of these having now reached the thirtysixth year of its existence. Delapierre, in his "Histoire Litteraire Des Fous," records the names of Arcilla, Guillaume Dubois, and Nathaniel Lee, who still displayed their original genius after they had been reduced to imbecility or mental feebleness by the more acute forms of disease. * Waverley, passim. M. Billod has given a specimen of incoherence in verse. The lines were not, however, extemporised, nor did rhyme form the patient's ordinary form of communication. The composition is part of a poem produced by a patient labouring under what is styled "geographic or historic association," in which places and persons seem to suggest the course of the thoughts: Viens, viens, mon très cher Eugène, Viens, viens, revoir la carène : L'Indoste suit toujours Tamerlan : Tu prends le casque de l'éperlan; Tu vas renaître sur le mont Acide On y place l'étendard d'Acide. Tu porteras chez nous la sainte dague, 66 Incoherence in itself affords many faint shadowings of the disruption of recondite mental relations, of errors within errors; but quotations showing the effect of association of ideas directed by the sound of the sign must suffice. An illustration of a modification of this relation was afforded in the case of a person who could still construct his sentences according to the ordinary mode, but who was guided in his choice of expressions by the sound of the terminal syllable or word, or by some rude notion of rhyme. So dominant and necessary did this tendency appear to be that he paused to consider the appropriate word; sacrificed every pretension to sense or reason, and embraced every incongruity and absurdity with a view to accomplish his object. If he concluded a phrase by the word "remorse," it was certain that "horse " or worse " would occupy a similar place in that which followed; if he used "firkin," gherkin was immediately suggested; and while he continued to make his harangue a vehicle for his wishes, and for sneers at those around, if he failed to summon up a term which harmonised with "coverlet," he immediately adopted plover-wit, or some term equally euphonious and absurd. A patient for three consecutive days vociferated incessantly words terminating in ation, or rather he added to every word that occurred to him that syllable; while many others whom we have observed chant or sing whatever they have to say. We have memoranda of a lady who, unguided by cadence or rhyme, seems to have been influenced by the sound of the principal word of the sentence. Some of her observations follow: "The stick she had was the handle of a pick to dig potatoes, and peas and plums; but the dog dragged the dust through the mignonette, and made sad work with the willow wands, and the sands on the sea-shore. Give me that book, the crook of the blot-Lot's wife was a witch and a pillar of salt and of sorrow." Another illustration has occurred in our practice. Amid great incoherence it was evident that a word in one sentence almost invariably suggested the succeeding thought and sentence. The following paragraph may be said to have been dictated by her: "The shells, the beautiful pink shells, cast upon the sea-shore require fifty days to consolidate; but then marble coffins are expensive, and will not make into statues. And then they speak of their Venus, but for my part I would rather go to Carlisle than Venice, for I have an old pier glass, that my ancestors got from Lord Stair, and he was a peer, and he had steps to his castle, and did not wander from our communion, for it takes fifty years for their progress. Mr. S. was a hundred and four, but what is time to the fair flowers, and the thyme that feeds the birds and the bees?" (Journal of Psychological Medicine, 1st Series.) MANIA. Mania implied, at no very distant date, vehemence, violence, strife, or struggle, or some outrage which endangered life or limb, or property, or the breach of some conventionalities of society. Many of the symptoms which gave to this epithet its formidable name and reputation have disappeared, or greatly diminished in intensity and frequency. In order to estimate the fury of the patients affected with the disease, or the fears of those who were expected to control them, it would be necessary to visit certain of the collections of the apparatus and instruments employed in effecting this control or coercion, which are still preserved on the continent. In these museums may be seen in linen, leather, wood, iron, every conceivable contrivance by means of which the limbs of the resisting and refractory were rendered motionless, or the whole body was reduced to the state and aspect of a mummy. There were chains, locks, belts, straps; there were chairs, boxes, coffinlooking caskets, provided with breathing and seeing apertures, in which the patient was confined in a state of complete immobility for indefinite periods of time; there were broad bandages of linen, of almost interminable length, in which the body was rolled or swathed until it resembled an Indian papoose and could be moved about as an inanimate piece of furniture. A more easily accessible mode of becoming familiar with such devices, all dictated, be it observed, by humanity or pusillanimity, will be found by reference to Guislain's "Histoire d'Alienation Mentale," where representations of all the machines which have been alluded to, and many more, are inserted. It is probable that the extreme length to which restraint was carried, whether justifiable or not, was the origin of that revulsion of feeling, or opinion, which |