carried to, to be under the care of the physician to whom the letter was addressed.

With all the seeming candour which pervades her statement, some art is apparent. She alludes to the tenets of the clergyman of her native place, which she denies having had "any active effect" upon her when a child, in the very terms which she would, had she had courage, have described the effect of the new doctrines she had recently heard, and which had actually produced on her mind the impression she deprecates.

In about three months, the case appearing confirmed insanity, she was removed to lodgings in the environs of London, to be under my care. In this stage I first saw her. She was past the sense of all moral attentions; her intellectual faculties were wholly absorbed; consciousness was denied; volition only seemed to be exercised. But in her soliloquies, or rather ramblings, what she said betrayed the inward workings, and that all her thoughts were bent on religious subjects. She was, however, eventually cured.

With the restoration of her understanding, her religious enthusiasm subsided; and she again resumed all the elegant and lighter accomplishments of which she was mistress, but had long neglected. As a convalescent she remained some weeks under my direction. Then, contrary to my earnest advice, she returned to her usual place of residence. Former associations were renewed;

sacrifice which has been made for the sins of the whole world could have induced me to make this disclosure. If I had not this faith, the knowledge of my offences would be death to me; and I cannot endure that any person who does not possess it should know them.

I am, dear Sir,

Your obliged humble Servant,

Í must observe, that a fear of alarming my mother prevents my communicating this letter to her.

E

and she was allowed to pursue her own inclinations. Her health soon again became disordered; she imbibed the most frightful and delusive impressions; and she was threatened with a complete relapse into her former mental malady. In this state I found her, when requested to visit her in the county of. Fortunately the means then prescribed preserved her from this calamity. Subsequently, however, as might be expected from such utter neglect of due precaution, she did relapse; and, when I last heard of her, she continued insane.

EXAMPLE V.

A young lady, of good natural parts, but who had had that superficial education which females receive at ordinary boarding-schools, was indulged at home in every vagary of froward fancy. She was just seventeen; and Shakespeare and Radcliffe, and Byron and Love, were alternately the idols of her imagination. Still she was not vicious. A seriously inclined neighbour, pitying her flightiness, undertook to reform her by his pious exhortations. At first they seemed to have a good effect, for she became more grave and steady in her conduct, and very attentive to divine worship. Serious impressions seemed daily to gather strength. She soon, however, went to the extreme, and talked of nothing but religion. Her zeal at length became so ardent, that she read only pious books; and she was particularly anxious to attend every church where she learnt the sacrament was to be administered.

In a short time she was so exalted, and her conduct so inconsistent, that her father took her to France, in the hope that change of scene would correct these aberrations. The very night of her arrival in that country a furious fit of mania occurred- an event pro

bably accelerated by suffering extreme sea-sickness.* She was confined a few weeks, when she appeared nearly recovered. Upon going out, she witnessed, for the first time, the ceremonies of the Romish church with which she appeared much struck. From that moment she lost all her zeal for the Protestant faith; and nothing would satisfy her but she would be a catholic. She was brought home. No care, however, removed this conceit; and she still continued so wild and unmanageable, that she was sent to a lunatic asylum. There I first visited her. Medical and moral remedies were prescribed: she mended, and might possibly have soon recovered, if some family misfortunes had not interrupted the course of treatment, and induced her removal. In three or four days she relapsed. Soon after, she was sent to another asylum, where, in about six months, she perfectly recovered. Her former religious hallucinations entirely disappeared; and the regimen to which she was probably subjected, produced a degree of steadiness she never before evinced.

EXAMPLE VI.

A lady, the daughter of a merchant, possessing an agreeable person, and all the elegant acquirements which could be bestowed, at the same time the most correct religious and moral principles, and enjoying all the comforts flowing from domestic life, had very early fixed her affections on a gentleman worthy of her. Reasons, on the part of her friends, interfered to prevent a union; and she endeavoured to subdue her attachment. The struggle was severe, but persisted in a long while. At length, consent was given to the match; they were married; and

* I have been consulted in several cases where mania was clearly consequent on this cause.

a connexion in business was formed between the father and husband. In a very short time, the embarrassments of the former involved the whole fortune of the latter; and in about a year the young couple were left without any provision, with one child, and the expectation of another. What added to her affliction was, the trouble of her parents and their other children, for all of whom she had the tenderest affection.

I knew this lady from her childhood. She never had a good constitution, but had always been subject to severe headachs and other corporeal ailments. The weight of such woes aggravated her complaints; nevertheless she bore all with great fortitude. A near and dear relative, with whom she corresponded, in the attempt to console, very vehemently exhorted her to seek alleviation in religion, which advice she enforced by such spiritual arguments as she thought best calculated to effect it. Unfortunately those arguments were intermixed with many abstract doctrinal points which were new to the sufferer. In the adaptation of them to her own case, she felt great perplexity. Instead, therefore, of deriving consolation, and bearing her misfortunes with that resignation which she at first evinced, and would most likely have continued, had the mild and cheering principles in which she had been bred been resorted to,– she at last adopted, without due examination, the most dangerous sophisms for truths, and yielded her whole mind, forgetful of every other duty, to them.

It was soon perceived that her reason was wavering. She was now sent, to divert the train of her thoughts, to a distant county, on a visit to some kind relations. But the association of ideas was not sufficiently severed : on the contrary, she was allowed too much to indulge in her aberrations, and even to correspond with those, who, without reflection, rather encouraged them. Shortly, complete insanity was developed.

In this state she was brought to London, and consigned to my direction. She was then only twenty-four years of age. There was evidently great constitutional as well as mental disorder. In a few months I had the happiness to see her health much improved; and every illusion, by degrees, vanish. She went to the sea-side with a proper attendant. In a few weeks she returned to the bosom of her family, much, I must confess, against my judgment, as I did not think the period of probation long enough. Nevertheless, she gradually recovered.

Never, probably, was any one who had been insane exposed to greater risk of relapse. She was immediately placed so as to feel all the wretchedness incident to a change of fortune, and entire dependance. She had, besides, the shock of beholding her husband, to whom she was most affectionately devoted, suffering under a cruel malady, which threatened his life, or his being reduced to the same condition as that from which she had so recently recovered. Yet, after the first struggle, and experiencing some threatening symptoms, she rallied; and sustained all her trials with astonishing resolution and unerring judgment.

Then it was that she experienced real consolation from religion. Her recent spiritual delusions had passed away. If she remembered the new lights which had so fatally misled, and finally absorbed her reasoning faculties, she was aware of their dangerous effect; and relying solely on those principles whence she had formerly always derived satisfaction and support, she was enabled to preserve her reason, and attain a state of comparative happiness.

She has since borne children, and is now a widow. Not only these trials, but that of maintaining herself and family by the exercise of her talents, she has met with a persevering and undisturbed mind.