His don tradesman, and by birth a Jew. first appearance in public, was as a player; and very early in life he must have given his friends some striking evidences of histrionic talent; for he was announced on the bills of Covent-garden as "Master Phillips, whose extraordinary abilities have been much admired at select parties of the nobility." He was then only in his fifteenth year. His " Richard," it is said, had in it something of original merit; but he soon left the stage, either from constitutional inability, or from the non-appearance of the expected success; both causes are assigned. His friends next sent him to the London University, still giving him credit for uncommon talents; and his subsequent career has amply borne out their most sanguine expectations. He attracted the attention of the Duke of Sussex by an Essay on Milton, and was sent from the London University to Gottingen, and thence to Cambridge. On leaving the University, his prospects from literature seemed so cheerless that he accepted the situation of private secretary to Alderman Salomons. He exchanged this post, in a short time, for that of private tutor in the family of the Marquis of Aylesbury, and was the teacher of Lord Ernest Bruce. He made, it seems during this time, several unsuccessful literary attempts, and is described as just giving up his hope, when his novel of " Caleb Stukeley" was accepted by the conductors of Blackwood's Magazine. This novel had a fair success- gave him a respectable standingand was followed by "We are all Low People There," and other tales. But the great event of his life was his becoming connected with the Times, as the writer of those celebrated articles, which have since been republished as Literary Essays. The engagement, like Edward Stirling's, was the result of an accidental communication. In style clear, clever, and eloquent, but not particularly accurate or profound, his contributions were read much less for the justness or originality of his views, than for the manly and vigorous form in which they were presented. The fact is, Phillips was a tory; and his essays often show how one radical error may color and pervert the whole current of opinion and taste. This is particularly evident in his review of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." You read the essay right through, with high-wrought interest; but the interest you feel is a tribute rather to the genius of the writer, than a homage to the soundness of his argument. It will now scarcely be believed, that its unique, graphic descripti tenderness and pathos, its all based, confessedly, contemporary life-were tle notice, and faint praise of condemnation hurled a a whole-simply because vested rights of property, property consisted of fles well remember our impre after we had read the es thought such a treat was was the first perusal of " less, that the name of the tined to become a househ and cottage, and to outvie of its fame, even that of Phillips' reviews of t mas Carlyle are open to jection. In fact, whenev reviewed breathed free either in religion or p was sure to be causti true. Still, as a slig partially, perhaps, explai the rest, we may remark able in his Essay on Car certain air of frolicsome r the writer felt that, if he should at least be with In passing judgment labors, it should be rem were, for the most part, weak and precarious sta much so, that his death would at no time have bee wonder being rather that This circumstance may a the venom which he som his papers, if it did not The probability of this is by the fact, that his pers not republished with the Though by the public ad ity, by him they seem to h In private life, moreover, a merry, good-tempered, fellow. The Times says, a more honorable man, o and intelligent friend and one who seems to have writes elsewhere, that seemed with him the inst nature;" that "his almos ness endeared him to a m and associates;" and that ever be tenderly cherished the influence of his kind a 19,000 persons are under reatics in England and Wales, and in 317 workhouses. Of the are in private houses, but by er number are in public estabSome of the county asylums ed "villages" of lunatics; for pulous as large villages. Thus, contains 1,244 inmates; Hanringfield, 713; Wakefield, 647; 30; several, more than 300. ssary attendants, servants, and it is obvious that we have conThese institutions large societies. people spend their lives ?-is hich may very reasonably be missioners in Lunacy classify r three heads. The first comunty Asylums, which externally sidences, built expressly for the the insane poor of counties. in England and Wales has an of this kind, except ten; and ing arrangements for asylums port of the Commissioners in Lunacy ncellor. 1854. V.-NO. III. | to be erected. Under the second head, we have hospitals for the insane, described as Institutions founded and supported by charitable individuals, and designed for the reception of needy patients of the middle and upper classes. They are not always designated "Hospitals" popularly; being "Retreats," or "Asylums," simply. The third head comprises Licensed Houses. These are Asylums, or Retreats, set on foot and maintained by private enterprise, for the reception of every grade of lunatic, from the pauper to the peer. In England and Wales, on the first of January, 1854, 37 county and borough Asylums contained 12,609 inmates; 14 Hospitals (not including the Royal Navy and Military Hospitals at Haslar and Yarmouth) had 1,613 inmates; and 130 Licensed Houses had 4,880 inmates. The entire number of the insane under care of these establishments, at the time mentioned, was 18,659. Ten years ago, the report of a Commission of Inquiry into the Condition of Lunatics, throughout England and Wales, was printed by the government. A comparison of this document with that of 1854 affords ground for congratulation. In 1844 we find 19 that in several Asylums, the old cruelty and | neglect was still practiced, and that so many as eleven were in a state deserving unqualified censure. Wales then, as now, was remarkable for the shameful neglect of the lunatic. The Asylum at Haverford-West, at the first visit of the Commissioners, in 1842, was declared to be a disgrace to the age and country. Eighteen patients were found in two dark cheerless rooms, with paved floors, the only article of furniture in each being a single table. The dress of the lunatics was ragged, uncleanly, and insufficient; and not a single change of either bed or body linen was in the place. Their beds of dirty straw had only a filthy rug, or a scrap of blanket, for covering. In a cell lighted by a grating, where the stench was so offensive that it was scarcely possible to remain, was a woman, fastened to a chair, and entirely naked. No place for exercise, no attempt at employment or amusement, prayers never read, no visits from the ministers of religion. Devonshire rivalled Wales in horrors. At the Asylum at Plympton, seventeen patients were found in a room seventeen feet by twelve, with seats for ten only, and no table. In a day-room was found a young woman, who had been delivered only six weeks, in a state of furious mania, wearing a strait-waistcoat, and chained by the arm and leg to a bench. Another woman, in a similar vest, was lying in a hole in the middle of the yard, with her head exposed to a hot sun. Twenty-one male patients were chained to their beds at night. The night cells damp and as dark as cellars; windows unglazed; floors soaked and reeking with urine, and partly covered with straw and excrement; filthy straw for beds; and in nine (containing women) there were no windows, but the light was conducted by a grating over the door opening into a passage; and so little of it, that the Commissioners, in the day-time, were obliged to use a lantern to view this sickening and shocking sight. At Kingsland, near Shrewsbury, nearly all the lunatics in the House of Industry, amounting to between eighty and ninety, were chained by their wrists to their beds at night. On the continent matters were not dissimilar. It is only about fifteen years since we ourselves saw, at Vienna, lunatics confined in cages, and exhibited for public amusement, like wild beasts. Like wild beasts, they never left their cages, by night or by day. The poor wretch is still in our mind's eye who sat crouched up in a corner of his cage, with matted heard and unkempt hair munch. ing a crust that had been thrust through the bars by a curious visitor; his bed being a little heap of straw; his sole furniture, a box for his excrements, which was passed in and out through a narrow opening in the strong wooden partition that constituted one side of his den. The history of the struggles of Professor Guislain (whose Clinical Lectures are before us) to ameliorate the condition of the insane in Belgium, reveals similar atrocities in the treatment of the insane in that country. The admirable institution over which he presides, is a sufficient proof of the vast improvement in the condition of the lunatic which has been effected of late years. Now, although there are no such atrocities now practiced in Asylums, illustrations of the working of the same principle which gave rise to them, are revealed from time to time, to remind us of what the man 'reft of reason has escaped from. Two such are presented in the last Report of the Commissioners. Evan Roberts was the eldest son of a farmer near Bangor, and, soon after he arrived at manhood, became subject to periodical fits of mania. These, as he grew older, became more confirmed, until, about seven years ago, he threatened the lives of his father and younger brother. He was thereupon shut up in a small upper room, and chained by the leg to his bedstead, from which he was never released, during the three remaining years of his father's life. At the death of the latter, the brother took charge of him, and constructed an outhouse for his residence, nine feet by four, lighted by a small skylight in the roof and a window eighteen inches square. Here he was imprisoned three years; and, when discovered, was found lying on a wooden bedstead, to which both his legs were chained by loose fetters, riveted on just above the ankles. In a recess in the wall, at the bottom of the bedstead, covered by a lid on hinges, was a sort of privy, emptying itself into a hole in the adjoining garden, and which the chain was just long enough to enable him to reach. The poor man conversed calmly and intelligibly; and his brother and sister admitted that he was often sane for weeks and months together. When removed, subsequently, to the North Wales Asylum, he was uniformly orderly and tranquil, and, for consideraale periods, coherent and comparatively rational. A very similar case was brought to light in Devonshire in 1851. Charles Luxmere was the son of a small farmer, and was himself brought up to be a blacksmith. Twenty be became insane and was there. indebted, than to the enlightened judge on the bench. It is amongst those who are practically acquainted with insanity in every phase and form, that the lunatic finds his kindest friends. These endure his provocations with equanimity, smile at his threats and insults, pity his delusions, and kindly minister to his diseased mind. They do all this because they know that the WILL is partially or wholly in abeyance, and that his acts and language proceed from a disordered brain, over which he has little or no control. To the experienced manager of the insane, they are but children of larger growth, to be ruled by a happy mixture of love, firmness, and severity. The medical superintendent of an Asylum is in loco parentis to the unfortunate persons under his care. Perhaps in no department of medical practice have the benevolence and en upon confined by his father in a sort of wooden cell, seven feet long, four feet wide, and six feet high, constructed for the purpose, and in which he continued chained to a beam in the floor. In this place he was kept a close prisoner for upwards of nine years, generally in a state of complete nudity; when, the father having become bedridden, and going to live with a son-in-law, the lunatic and his den were removed to the same place, where the latter was re-constructed, and he was kept chained in the same condition as before. His cell had no fire place, was only lighted by a small hole with iron bars across it; and, with the exception of a low wooden bedstead with a little loose straw upon it, it was wholly destitute of furniture, was close and dirty, and had a most disgusting smell. This poor sufferer was removed to the Devon County Asylum, where he proved to be an amiable, inoffensive, and well-lightened judgment of the profession shone conducted man, quite cleanly in his habits, and taking a pride in being neat and welldressed. There is nothing more certain, we believe, than that the nearest relations of a lunatic grow weary of him, sooner or later feel disgust towards him, and, in instances not a few, hate the sight of him. The causes of this are of mixed origin. Often, the sufferer is very disgusting and provoking in his language and conduct, manifests bitter hatred towards his nearest relations, is exceedingly troublesome, and not unfrequently threatens life and property. Under these circumstances, love grows gradually cold. Then, again, there is a feeling that the lunatic brings disgrace on his relations; a taint fixes on the blood, and people say there is madness in the family. Madness, too, inspires fear, horror, and aversion in many persons. A maniac is a hateful person, because he is a maniac: he is abhorred instinctively. That there is a large amount of popular prejudice in regard to the insane, is very true; but we doubt much whether the metropolis is so much superior to "the provinces" as the Commissioners assert: we doubt it as a fact, and we question it as a theory. In these days of general information and rapid intercommunication, there is no reason why "the provinces" should be more deplorably ignorant than the metropolis. It is a fact, that there is the most lamentable ignorance, in the very highest quar. ters of the metropolis, as to the nature and consequences of mental derangement, and that to the common sense of a middle-class more brightly forth, than in the management of the insune; from the time of Pinel to the present, that profession has been the consistent and persevering friend of the lunatic. Amongst the most energetic and able of the continental Superintendents, Professor Guislain takes a high rank, both as a reformer of abuses and as a teacher. He lectures, every week, alternately, in the men's and women's department of the Asylum at Ghent, of which he is the superior officer. Each lecture continues two hours, and is illustrated by cases. The students have the following simple rules for the guidance of their conduct while in the wards: "Ask no imprudent questions. Wait until you are invited to speak to the patients. Do not annoy them by conversation, by looks, or by making them feel your presence." No bad result has followed from these practical studies; and yet every form of insanity is illustrated. "Look at that woman," Guislain remarks; "her expression, attitudes, crouching position, all show that excessive fear is the predominant passion. She is sixty-six years old. Till she was sixty, she was a house servant; dismissed, she had to gain a livelihood by making lace and doing needle-work. A year ago she began to lose her sight; then the entire loss destroyed all her means of existence. Six months ago she was in hospital for typhus; when she recovered, she was insane, and suffered from intense melancholy and terror." This is no uncommon case :-poverty, anxiety, a terrible struggle to keep up appearances, but in vain, ending in a work-house; Such an instance we remember of a feeble young woman, the educated daughter of a professional man, sent by the Union to an Asylum for receiving paupers. Her irongray hair was cut short, her face was deeply stamped with care and melancholy, her clothes neglected; she rarely spoke, never smiled. Our first care was to recruit her shattered strength, and to awaken the dormant cerebral powers, by appeals to her feminine taste for personal adornment. It was a hopeful sign when she decked her head with an incongruous medley of flowers and scraps of colored calico, and took pleasure in a ring of yellow worsted; but, when she began to brush and part her hair, clean her shoes, and keep her clothes neat, we felt no doubt of her approaching convalescence. The monomania for thieving is a curious form of mental abberration. Its existence is hardly credited; it is not thought possible that a man can pilfer as senselessly as a raven or a magpie. But so it is. "The young man you see there," observes Guislain," remarkable for his clear complexion, pleasant expression of countenance, intelligent look, and good manners, has this mania; he is employed here as under-attendant. The disease occurs every two or three years, and is manifested by an excessive tendency to desire other people's property. This lunatic, so remarkable for his good qualities of both head and heart-amongst others, a great desire for instruction-is a gardener by trade, and steals the plants of the garden, money, the clothes of his fellow-workmen. He deceives most experienced attendants, and often escapes from them. He spends the money he has stolen, and steals from the people with whom he lodges. He barters and exchanges, and cheats every one he has to do with. He gives himself up to every kind of roguery, commits depredations every where, spends his money foolishly, and winds up by coming to the gates of the Asylum to be admitted. The paroxysms continue for some months, and are followed by long lucid intervals, during which he conscientiously makes restitution, out of savings, to those whom he has plundered. During these intervals, he is wholly free from disease." Such is Guislain's description of the case; the moral he points is, that it would be difficult to convince a court of law that, when in a paroxysm, the young man is insane. Drunkenness is another vice which appears in the form of insanity. Guislain mentions the example of a music-master, who every one or two years, would suddenly cease teaching, and give himself up to incessant intoxication. This would continue for three months; then, he would become sober as suddenly as he became drunken and obstein now wholly from alcoholic drinks. Feeling, in one of his lucid intervals, the premonitory indications of his disorder, he destroyed his own life. Sometimes this paroxysm of oinomania, (as the disease is designated,) is accompanied by an inclination for a vagabond life in the lowest company; or else, there is just the latter without the former. The two sons of a professional man of some standing, in whose family there was hereditary insanity, were thus affected. They were both well educated, gentlemanly men, accustomed to excellent society, and remarkable for their elegant dress. The eldest abandoned practice, to wander about the country, sleeping under a hedge, now lodging in a union-house, now in jail for acts of vagrancy, begging from house to house, ragged and filthy as the filthiest mendicant. This he did for several years in succession, until, the paroxysm abating, he returned to his or dinary habits of life. The other got his living by selling matches at fairs, playing at thimblerig, &c., and was last seen, in the society of a low prostitute, in a miserable lodging in London, the only furniture of which Both these young men had a home to return was a three-legged stool and a heap of straw. to, replete with every comfort. A character of this kind, Thomas H— surgeon by profession, and connected, we are assured, with a dignitary of the church, has begged through the United Kingdom as a common mendicant and impostor for more than twenty years past. We have ourselves had him calling upon us thrice within eighteen years, the last occasion being within the last six months. This man is never so happy as when he has imposed upon the benevolence of his victim by a plausible tale of distress and misery, for which his gentlemanly manner and style of feature give him great facilities. a Murderous malice and cunning are sometimes the chief characteristics of the insane. "Look at that young person," said the Medical Superintendent of an Asylum, and we observed a modest, gentle, amiable-looking girl, seated sewing, remarkable only for the furtive, cunning glances she gave us from time to time. That girl had attempted suicide repeatedly, her throat bore the scars of two attempts to cut it, and had committed murder once if not twice. She seemed to have, every now and then, an irresistible impulse to take life from the feeble and imbecile. She would inveigle them into a corner, or to some remote place, and, watching her opportunity, attempt to strangle them. Or she would - whisper to them the most horrid threats if |