moment when the careful psychological observer would mark the coming on of disease? These are points which must yet be deeply and carefully studied by the mental psychologist, for as yet we have no clue to their explanation. I must here introduce a case, which made in France, some years since, an indelible impression upon mental pathologists; it is but little known in England, but ought to be recorded in our literature. The circumstances were narrated at the time only in the "Gazette des Tribunaux." On the 2nd of July, in 1828, about ten in the evening, three young girls in a village in France were sitting by the side of the river, bathing their feet, when Nicholas Rousselot, a man living in the village, came up to them and tried to lay hold of them. The two most active escaped; the third, Genevieve Barroyer, had not time to do so. Forced to walk into the stream, she called out to the man, "Do not be foolish; we are in the water." He, without answering, took her and threw her down. The river was not very deep. The companions of the young girl ran, frightened, into the village, and spread the alarm; a great number of persons ran quickly to the spot, but it was too late, the body of the girl was found by the side of the water spread out, all her garments were thrown over her head, and twisted in such a way as to have prevented her respiration and the use of her arms; a large contusion was visible upon her chest, evidently produced by the pressure of the knee. Rousselot had disappeared as soon as the persons came rushing down the river, and remained concealed two days and two nights in a neighbouring wood, and on the third day he delivered himself up from hunger. He was tried at the assizes for the murder; the greater number of the witnesses testified that he was a man of whom all the females in the neighbourhood were in constant dread; he seemed always tormented by sexual desire; not only had he made several attempts upon the young women of the village, but all sorts of strange stories were afloat about his conduct to the women throughout the whole department; he was supposed to be somewhat deranged since he had been ill the previous year. The man appeared about thirty years of age, small in size, a thin visage, with deep sunk eyes and pallid look. During the trial, he kept his eyes constantly fixed on the ground, without evincing any emotion. Those who knew him from his infancy, described him as of a sombre, savage character, always avoiding society, and of obstinate taciturnity. The medical men who had charge of him declared that he never evinced any mark of insanity. Besides the murder of this girl, he was accused of an attempt on a married woman shortly before. The accusation was, that he had murdered the girl, and then attempted to violate her; the defence was, insanity; upon both points he was found guilty, but by one of those decisions which lead the public to believe that the jury is more insane than the man they are trying, they considered that he had committed the murder in a state of insanity, but that he was in his senses when he committed the act of violation. This inexplicable enigma of judicial logic still remains as a psychological problem. The accused was condemned to be shut up for ten years for the minor offence, and afterwards to be committed to a lunatic asylum. Verdicts of this kind show the necessity for more minute knowledge, and for more accurate judgment, in the judicial investigation of psychological crimes. MADNESS, AS TREATED BY SHAKSPERE. BY R. H. HORNE. Or all the diseases of the body and the mind, the one least understood is that condition which we call "madness." Certainly there is no other which presents half such wonderful and complicated phenomena. Madness is profoundly melancholy, heart-breaking, hopeless; and it is ferocious, terrific, exalted with monstrous hopes: madness may be most gentle and consistent, or it may be most violent and variable, alternating between appalling curses and the tenderest tears; it is often depressed beneath despair-yet far more commonly uplifted, and it generally ascends the highest heaven (or descends to the lowest hell) of "invention," according to the quality of its powers. Madness is most extravagant and irrational; yet is it reasoning from morning till night, even till it becomes the fool, not of REASON, but of the process of reasoning. In one sense, it is generally quite right; and you will see this, too, if you will only consent to look at the given question from the same point of vision. It is seldom able to deceive anybody who does not consent to it in the first instance, or only to deceive for a brief period; but it constantly deceives itself, which, however, makes no difference in the fact, the feeling, or the progress of the hallucination. Madness is tragic and pathetic, and this we thoroughly feel; it is also comic and fantastic to the last degree, but these things we do not feel, or at least we can take no part in the pleasantry. We can shed tears with it in true sympathy, but we cannot laugh with it cordially. A madman's jest makes you become grave and thoughtful. Madness is isolated, solitary, incapable of combination to aid or to be aided in a given course, its continuity being dependent on the winds, or other ungovernable elements of its own; it drifts alone upon its own surging waves-a wreck on its own mental sea. It seems to understand itself, though other minds do not understand it. Except in certain effects, physical condition, general habits, and outward peculiarities, even the most intellectual and experienced of those who have charge of lunatics, confess that they know little or nothing of this wonderful disease of the mind. Moreover, its ramifications and shades are almost universal. When Dr. Haslam, the celebrated author and physician, was cross-questioned as a witness in a court of law, he was asked how hẹ . distinguished an insane patient from a person of perfectly sound mind? He replied, "I consider that there is no perfectly sound mind, except the mind of the Deity." The above opinion may have been carried to an extreme; nevertheless, it is not to be denied that, in the infinitude of shades and gradations of madness, a far greater number of individuals are more deeply "touched" than is at all suspected. Nor does this greatly signify in the current affairs and bustle of the world, where a marvellous balance is kept up amidst the ever-warring wheels, so that the half deranged wits who fall a prey to rogues, continually rise again on the ruins of those who have outwitted themselves by equally wild fallacies. Seeing all these things about us,—that degrees of madness are far more common than we deem, but that the highest degrees are rare, and still more wonderful to witness in those of extraordinary mental powers, or who have possessed striking characters before the edifice fell to ruin and desolation,-it will be deeply interesting to consider and study what Shakspere has done for us on this great and mysterious affliction of humanity. He has left his Book of Nature marked for us at several profoundly important places. Nothing can be more subtly, yet decisively marked, than the gradations by which King Lear, from a venerable and almost doting old man, who wishes to "shake all cares and business" from his boweddown tree of life, so that he may "unburdened crawl towards death,”— rises with preternatural strength into the most towering condition of utter madness. We had a general impression, in recollections of the tragedy, that the first breaking forth of the madness of Lear-that is, the turning point when his rage and conflicting passions carried his mind beyond all self-government, or definite conception of itself and its own purposes-was displayed at the close of Act II., where he exclaims to his daughters,— I have full cause of weeping; but this heart Thus, after rising apparently to the highest pitch of fury with one unnatural daughter, he suddenly discovers another daughter yet more unnatural, so that his violence is impelled to burst all bounds: he then pauses an instant to contemplate the first daughter again, because he now believes her less monstrous, and by comparison almost kind, when he immediately perceives that she is even worse than the second daughter. These sudden and violent bursts and recoils of passion-the rapid alternations of the frenzy of hate, with loving though much-exacting hope-and the manifest confusion of his brain, as displayed in the equal fury and vagueness of his purposes, added to the final declaration of the frantic condition into which he was rushing-all these seemed to indicate the point where Lear's reason gave way, and every fresh emotion and thought would impel him deeper into the chaotic elements of insanity. Coleridge places the first symptoms of " positive derangement" at the close of the 4th Scene of Act III., where the forlorn King tears off his clothes amidst the storm on the heath, and discourses with Edgar, who is disguised as Mad Tom. (See "Literary Remains," Vol. II.) We have given this opinion that consideration which such an authority as Coleridge must always claim; referring, however, to the tragedy for a close examination throughout, we cannot by any means coincide with him, even though the faithful Kent seems to entertain the same opinion, in this scene: Kent. Importune him once more to go, my lord: Act III., Scene 4. Perhaps this remark of Kent's might have influenced, if not partly originated, the opinion of Coleridge. We are too apt to regard the remarks of the dramatis person in a play, concerning each other, as conclusive, and to form our judgments accordingly; whereas, each character is influenced by his own personal feelings and interests, passions and peculiarities; and however important an authority or witness on a given question, the opinion must only be taken in connexion with the rest we know of the characters, words, and actions of the individual under consideration. The entire work must be carefully consulted. Taking, then, Shakspere's tragedy in its entirety, we are led to turn back, not merely from the third Act, but from the second Act, and again from that to the first, until we are finally compelled to think that the madness of Lear is at least "prepared for” in the very first scene-if not something more. It hence appears, that so subtly has Shakspere woven his web, that from the first scene to the last, he has "enmeshed them all," and we are consequently obliged to commence our study of his treatment of madness in the character of Lear, with the very first scene of the tragedy. The character of Lear at the opening of the tragedy is that of a very old and venerable king, equally affectionate and choleric; magnificently generous, yet minutely selfish; ready to give away all substantial things, but exacting a measureless return of ideal good-all his land, and gold, and power, provided he have in exchange the utmost love, or at least the assertion of it, (for it is manifest that the inward fact was not of so much importance to him as the external form,) and that he also retain the name and dignity of a king. He has a largeness of heart and store of tenderness for those he loves, and he is readily pacified by a slight concession, even in his anger; but he is no doubt most overbearing and despotic in his feelings and notions of what is due to himself as a king and a father, and he would absolutely rule over the soul (as his subject, no less than the body) of his child. His exactions in this respect, and his general overweening sense of the kingly office, alternate between dotage and monomaniasm, and often, perhaps, are compounded of both. In this state of mind, and when upwards of eighty years of age, Lear determines on laying down the cares of sovereignty, and accordingly makes the division of his kingdom, and summons his three daughters to be present at the ceremony of the announcement. Let it be noted, therefore, that the division has been already settled in the old King's mind, assuming the great love borne him by his daughters; so that his asking the question of how much they loved him, and which of them loved him most, in order that he might know to whom the largest portion ought to fall, was a mere caprice of selfish exaction, though not unkindly or invidiously intended. "The trial," says Coleridge, "is but a trick, and the grossness of the old King's rage is in part the natural result of a silly trick, suddenly and most unexpectedly baffled and disappointed." It was, perhaps, not very seriously intended; he made sure of all the answers, as matter of course; but directly he finds himself thwarted, then it begins to be a dreadfully serious matter with him; the more so that this comes from his favourite daughter, from whom he expected most. Nevertheless, he tries to get Cordelia to speak in the same strain as her sisters; it was only the declaration that he sought to enforce, and not any practical proof of her love. Cordelia, however, as Hazlitt acutely observes, has a dash of "her father's obstinacy in her," and refuses to comply with his will, even though she sees the old King's passions begin to boil up, and that he is becoming more furious every instant. There is a reprehensible and cruel hardness in the firm refusal of Cordelia to humour her aged father; still his rage is beyond all measure of rationality, when we consider the cause. sane. Lear. Here I disclaim all my paternal care, Propinquity, and property of blood, And as a stranger to my heart and me, Hold thee, from this, for ever. The barbarous Scythian, Or he that makes his generation messes To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom Be as well neighbour'd, pitied, and relieved, As thou my sometime daughter. Kent. Good my liege,— Lear. Peace, Kent! Come not between the dragon and his wrath! There is something in the excess of this rage, under the given circumstances, which is beyond a passion, and can hardly be called The very reason he gives for it, is a mad reason. He has "loved her most," and thought "to set his rest on her kind nursery," -that is, to dwell with her. Yet because she has publicly thwarted his whim-his idle little plot-down come all these monstrous |