becomes puzzling, and by endeavouring to adjust the spelling, the subject vanishes. As their apathy increases they are negligent of their dress, and inattentive to personal cleanliness. Frequently they seem to experience transient impulses of passion, but these have no source in sentiment; the tears, which trickle down at one time, are as unmeaning as the loud laugh which succeeds them; and it often happens that a momentary gust of anger, with its attendant invectives, ceases before the threat can be concluded. As the disorder increases, the urine and fæces are passed without restraint, and from the indolence which accompanies it, they generally become corpulent. Thus in the interval between puberty and manhood, I have painfully witnessed this hopeless and degrading change, which in a short time has transformed the most promising and vigorous intellect into a slavering and bloated ideot.

Of the organs of sense, which become affected in those labouring under insanity, the ear, more particularly suffers. I scarcely recollect an instance of a lunatic becoming blind, but numbers are deaf. It is also certain that in these persons, more delusion is conveyed through the ear than the eye, or any of the other senses. Those who are not actually deaf, are troubled with difficulty of hearing, and tinnitus aurium. Thus an insane person shall suppose that he has received a commission from the Deity; that he has ordered him to make known his word, or to perform some act, as a manifestation of his will and power. It is however much to be regretted, that these divine commissions generally terminate in human mischief and calamity, and instances are not unfrequent, where these holy inspirations, have urged the unfortunate believer to strangle his wife, and attempt the butchery of his children. From this source may be explained, the numerous delusions of modern prophecies, which circumstantially relate the gossipings of angels, and record the hallucinations of feverish repose.

In consequence of some affection of the ear, the insane sometimes insist that malicious agents contrive to blow streams of infected air into this organ: others have conceived, by means of what they term hearkening wires and whiz-pipes, that various obscenities and blasphemies are forced into their minds; and it is not unusual for those who are in a desponding condition, to assert, that they distinctly hear the devil tempting them to self-destruction.

A considerable portion of the time of many lunatics, is passed in replies to something supposed to be uttered. As this is an increasing habit, so it may be considered as an unfavourable symptom, and at last the patient becomes so abstracted from surrounding objects, that the greater part of the day is consumed in giving answers to these supposed communications. It sometimes happens that the intelligence conveyed, is of a nature to provoke the mad-man, and on these occasions, he generally exercises his wrath on the nearest bystander; whom he supposes, in the hurry of his anger, to be the offending party.

In the soundest state of our faculties, we are more liable to be deceived by the ear, than through the medium of the other senses: a partial obstruction by wax, shall cause the person so affected, to hear the bubbling of water, the ringing of bells, or the sounds of musical instruments; and on some occasions, although the relation seems tinged with superstition, men of undeviating veracity, and of the highest attainments, have asserted, that they have heard themselves called. “He [Dr. Johnson] mentioned a thing as not unfrequent, of which I [Mr. Boswell] had never heard before—being called, that is, hearing one’s name pronounced by the voice of a known person at a great distance, far beyond the possibility of being reached by any sound, uttered by human organs. An acquaintance on whose veracity I can depend, told me, that walking home one evening to Kilmarnock, he heard himself called from a wood, by the voice of a brother who had gone to America; and the next packet brought account of that brother’s death. Macbean asserted that this inexplicable calling was a thing very well known. Dr. Johnson said, that one day at Oxford, as he was turning the key of his chamber, he heard his mother distinctly call Sam. She was then at Litchfield; but nothing ensued. This phænomenon is, I think, as wonderful as any other mysterious fact, which many people are very slow to believe, or rather, indeed, reject with an obstinate contempt.”—Boswell’s Life of Dr. Johnson, 4to. vol. ii. p. 384.

One of the most curious cases of this nature which has fallen under my observation, I shall here venture to relate, for the amusement of the reader. The patient was a well educated man, about the middle age; he always stopped his ears closely with wool, and, in addition to a flannel night-cap, usually slept with his head in a tin saucepan. Being asked the reason why he so fortified his head, he replied, “To prevent the intrusion of the sprites.” After having made particular enquiry concerning the nature of these beings, he gravely communicated the following information:—“Sir, you must know that in the human seminal fluid there are a number of vital particles, which being injected into the female, impregnate her, and form a fœtus of muscles and bones. But this fluid has other properties, it is capable, by itself, of producing vitality under certain circumstances, and experienced chemists and hermetical philosophers have devised a method of employing it for other purposes, and some, the most detrimental to the condition and happiness of man. These philosophers, who are in league with princes, and their convenient and prostituted agents, contrive to extract a portion of their own semen, which they conserve in rum or brandy: these liquors having the power of holding for a considerable time the seminal fluid, and keeping its vitality uninjured. When these secret agents intend to perform any of their devilish experiments on a person, who is an object of suspicion to any of these potentates, they cunningly introduce themselves to his acquaintance, lull him to sleep by artificial means, and during his slumbers, infuse a portion of their seminal fluid (conserved in rum or brandy) into his ears.

“As the semen in the natural commerce with the woman, produces a child, so, having its vitality conserved by the spirit, it becomes capable of forming a sprite; a term, obviously derived from the spirit in which it had been infused. The ear is the most convenient nidus for hatching these vital particles of the semen. The effects produced on the individual, during the incubation of these seminal germs, are very disagreeable; they cause the blood to mount into the head, and produce considerable giddiness and confusion of thought. In a short time, they acquire the size of a pin’s head; and then they perforate the drum of the ear, which enables them to traverse the interior of the brain, and become acquainted with the hidden secrets of the person’s mind. During the time they are thus educated, they enlarge according to the natural laws of growth; they then take wing, and become invisible beings, and, from the strong ties of natural affection, assisted by the principle of attraction, they revert to the parent who afforded the semen, and communicate to him their surreptitious observations and intellectual gleanings. In this manner, I have been defrauded of discoveries which would have entitled me to opulence and distinction, and have lived to see others reap honours and