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view of the subject, fail to make good the position for which they contend, that Insanity is as susceptible of cure as other 'maladies,' they at least incontestibly prove thus much, that it is a curable complaint, and curable in a very considerable proportion of instances. And if,' adds our Author, in concluding this part of the Inquiry,

If so much have been accomplished-through means which, I will venture to assert, however much desired or sought, have been scarcely ever commensurate, and are often notoriously deficient ; and when, besides, the visionary speculations of some and the ignorance of others are eternally counteracting the wisest ordinances-who can refrain from contemplating, without a prescient hope, what might be achieved, were the requisites at command, and were more enlightened views to predominate.'

Is insanity an increasing malady?' The affirmative has been maintained, our Author thinks, in terms far too sweeping and indiscriminate. He has been at the pains of instituting a very minute inquiry into this particular, the result of which proves, that the regular increment of mental derangement by no means bears a proportion, as is usually conceived, to the growth of civilization and refinement. Periods of national calamity and turbulence have been productive of madness in a more than ordinary measure, as was instanced in France during the horrors of the Revolution; and we are informed upon the best authority, that the disease is at this moment making dreadful ravages in the several districts of Ireland in which distress is almost at its acme. But the documents which Dr. Burrows lays before us, constitute sufficient evidence of the erroneousness of that opinion which is the prevalent one, viz. that Insanity in England, is actually and regularly on the increase.

Whether the question respecting the increase of insanity in England, be judged by the aggregate entries in the Commissioners' Register; the account of the lunatics received by St. Mary-le-bone parish; the records of English lunatic asylums; a comparison of the number at present in the London district with the computation in 1800; with the deaths of lunatics entered in the London bills of mortality; or even with the progress of population; the more clear is the demonstration that it is not an increasing malady.'

In the next section of his work, the Author discusses the queston, Is insanity a prevalent malady? And he shews, that the proportion in England and Wales according to the census of 1810, was 1 in 2000; a ratio not sufficiently large to justify the opinion that insanity is an exceedingly prevalent disease. In this chapter, there is likewise a successful attempt to combat the prevailing notion, that England abounds more in cases of insanity and suicide than other countries. Dr. Burrows presents us a table exhibiting the proportion of suicides to the

population in most of the large cities on the Continent, in a given time, compared with that of London, which affords the following results for Paris, Copenhagen, Berlin, and our own Metropolis.

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84,000

Suicides.

200

300

57

51

Berlin

Copenhagen

Consequently, the proportion of suicides in the capitals of Paris, Berlin, and Copenhagen, is, in relation to that of London, as 5 to 2, 5 to S, and 3 to 1.

‹ Thus,' says Dr. B. if the prevalence of suicide be a test of the prevalence of insanity, we have here positive proof, that mental derangement is less frequent in England than in several other countries. Were we to extend the inquiry into the provinces of England, it is certain the ratio of suicides would be much diminished; for in a metropolis where the incentives are most frequent, it will ever superabound. The contrary seems to obtain in Prussia: but in 1817, (the year chosen by Dr. Burrows for this comparative census,) that country was still suffering under the miseries war had inflicted; from which, perhaps, Berlin experienced the least of any of the other cities.'

This last is a very curious and important fact; and we think our Author would have much improved the estimates and calculations which he has been at the pains of instituting, had he extended his investigations back to another and more distant year. There is, however, no lack of evidence to prove the wide devastation and complicated misery produced by the conflicts of nations. War not only crowds hospitals, but furnishes poor-houses and mad-houses with a large proportion of their inmates. By the way, we doubt whether the particular circumstances of the Continent at the period chosen for our Author's inquiries, may not be considered as in some measure explanatory of the difference between this and other countries in reference to the prevalence of mental disease. Had Britain been the actual theatre of war, it is more than probable that the number of victims to its malign influence, would in this respect have been considerably augmented.

Creditable as the result is to the British character, yet the pious and the philanthropic will acknowledge little reason for gratulation; since it only proves that among nations we are the least demoralized: and it is a poor consolation to be merely the lowest in the scale of impiety. Suicide, it must be confessed, is a vice still much too common in England.'

Such are the reflections of our Author upon summing up his comparative account, and in the main his remarks must be

allowed to be just and appropriate. But to speak of suicide as a' vice' without any qualifying salvo to this condemnatory inference, implies a harshness of censure inconsistent with the physical views which Dr. Burrows takes of mental malady. Although it formed no part of his plan in the present volume, to chalk out the discriminating features between crime and madness, (a most momentous point of consideration,) yet, the language he has employed in the sentence above quoted, may be the occasion of unnecessary distress to such of his readers as have either contemplated this dreadful deed in the moment when reason has forsaken them, or have already suffered the raost poignant affliction in the loss of some relative or friend by the act of self-destruction. It will not for a moment be imagined that we would wish to palliate the guilt of wilful suicide: we are, on the contrary, of opinion, that a laxity of feeling has obtained in reference to this most horrid of all horrid acts, which originates in opinions highly erroneous, and is pregnant with the most mischievous consequences. But to attach criminality to self-destruction when reason and consequent accountability are gone, is both unphilosophical and unfeeling; and from such a writer as Dr. Burrows, the principle could only have been admitted by a lapsus calami.

Opportunities have before presented themselves to us of combating that vulgar, and we were going to call it fanatical, notion, that religion is frequently the cause of insanity. The concerns of futurity must appear to persons of the smallest reflection, of such awful moment, that we can easily believe, in minds predisposed to derangement, unsatisfactory and terrific views of an eternal state may operate very powerfully in assisting to produce actual madness. But in the majority of instances which we witness of the religiously mad,' those fanatical feelings and expressions by which the hallucination is accompanied, are the consequences, rather than the sources of the disorder. In this opinion, we are happy to find that Dr. Burrows in some measure coincides: he devotes a chapter of his book to the question, Is religion a cause or an effect of insanity?' and, we think, deserves some credit for not suffering himself to be carried down with the common current of opinion in reference to this particular.

Dr. Hallaran, a recent and very able writer on insanity, when adverting to this subject, remarks, that in the Cork Lunatic Asylum, where Catholics are in proportion to Protestants as ten to one, no instance of mental derangement caused by religious enthusiasm has occurred among the former; while several dissenters from the Established Church have been so affected. Of this fact, the following explanation is proposed by Dr. Burrows.

The reason of the difference appears obvious. The ministers of the Romish persuasion will not permit their flocks to be wrought upon. To distrust the fallibility of any point of doctrine or discipline, is with them heresy. Catholics, therefore, are preserved from those dubitations which, when once engendered, generally end in conversion. The moment of danger is, when ancient opinions in matters of faith are wavering, or in the noviciate of those recently embraced. And to this danger every Protestant is more particularly exposed ; especially in a country where toleration in religious opinions is allowed; for there excess of fervour is the most likely to be awakened.'

After all, however, we believe that constitutional temperament has much more to do with illusory conceits, than any of the exciting causes alleged. It has been well remarked, that the Poet Cowper, who has been so often cited as an instance of religious melancholia, was about to commit suicide before he was the subject of religious impression; and by the same Writer we are reminded that neither Swift nor Rousseau was a religious melancholic. It is this constitutional temperament that distorts truth, and thus, as Dr. Burrows remarks, generates an opinion that melancholy insanity is the effect of religious impressions.' In minds so constituted, the most ordinary incidents become provocations of derangement. Some minds are so framed as

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to view all the blessings of this, or a future life, by involution. Their greatest gratification is persistive despondency. Deaf to precept or example, they retort:

Go-you may call it madness-folly—

You shall not chase my gloom away;
There's such a charm in melancholy-
I would not if I could, be gay!'

We must here terminate our account of this very interesting performance. The medical reader will of course look to Dr. Burrows for a detail of those plans and practices which he represents as having proved so efficacious in healing wounded, or in restoring lost reason. In his " Commentaries on Insanity," (a work some time ago promised,) we shall hope to meet with these details in the mean time, we readily accept the stated results on the credit of our Author's name and character, and acknowledge our obligations to him for having placed the matter of mental aberration in a much more consolatory point of view than we have hitherto been accustomed to contemplate it..

Dr. Burrows is an able writer: his principal fault, as it relates to manner, consists in an occasional endeavour to compose too carefully. We think that with a little less of the récherché about his words and sentences, the style of the book would have

* See Quarterly Review. Article" Insanity and Madhouses."

been still less exceptionable. It behooves authors who are solicitous about dressing their thoughts out to the best advantage, to keep in constant recollection the maxim, artem celare.

Art. III. Memoirs illustrative of the Life and Writings of John Evelyn, Esq. F.R.S. Author of the "Sylva," &c. &c. Comprising his Diary from the Year 1641 to 1705, 6, and a Selection of his Familiar Letters. To which is subjoined, the private Correspondence between King Charles I, and his Secretary of State, Sir Edward Nicholas, whilst his Majesty was in Scotland 1641, and at other Times during the Civil War; also between Sir Edward Hyde, afterwards Earl of Clarendon, and Sir Richard Browne, Ambassador to the Court of France. The whole now first published from the Original MSS. Edited by William Bray, Esq. F.R.S. Second Edition. 2 vols. 4to. [Plates] pp. xxviii. 1350. London. 1819.

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HESE volumes combine the attractions of biography, travels, and historical memoirs. The Diary, which occupies rather more than half of the work, exhibits the unaffected sentiments of one of the most virtuous men of his time, on the passing events, prevailing manners, and most distinguished personages of the interesting period which it embraces. It is a private record, having no pretensions to the character of history or political annals; for some of the most important occurrences are alluded to in the slightest manner possible; but disclosing information sometimes of a curious and valuable description, always entertaining, and affording a display of integrity, good sense, and signal amiableness of disposition in the accomplished Writer, which in no small degree contributes to the pleasure and interest felt in the perusal. The rank which Mr. Evelyn held in society, and the universality of his acquaintance, could not fail to enrich his personal journal with details relating to the most illustrious actors in those events which form the matter of history; at the same time, there is a very singular abstinence from the parade of an anecdotist, from the self-important enunciation of opinions, and even from all expressions of party rancour. Mr. Evelyn appears to have been a person of a remarkably calm and philosophic temper, and of the most perfect simplicity of character. The appearance of such a man in the midst of the licentious court of Charles the Second, as the intimate of Royalty and the confidant of statesmen, yet himself neither a politician nor a man of intrigue, is a phenomenon which might seem to admit of a reference by way of analogy, though not of parallel, to the situation of Daniel at the court of Babylon. With what are properly termed politics, it is astonishing how little Mr. Evelyn appears to have meddled. It was certainly neither indolence nor a deficiency of patriotism, VOL. XIV. N.S.

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