Your poor devil at the East-end, and your devil-may-care fellow of the West-end, are equally honoured by its visitation; while your happy, active middle-man, who stands aloof from either end, sturdily bids it defiance, and slams the door in its face. Under the influence of this visitor it is that sundry pious pilgrimages are made to the foot of Waterloo or Blackfriars' bridges, to steal out of life through an archway, unless the dear enthusiast is interrupted by a meddling officious waterman, and his senses gently wooed back by the resuscitating apparatus and warm blankets of the Humane Society. Will Sprightly, with four thousand a-year unincumbered, doesn't know what to do with himself, and straightway falls to the agreeable occupation of encumbering it, and, when it will bear no more, he finds he cannot bear himself, and incontinently flies from one state of suspense to another, and hangs himself; or, should the ruling passion be strong in death, and he is desirous even then to cut a figure, why, he cuts his throat; or, the report of a pistol will give you a pretty correct intimation of his whereabouts, and his probable occupation. "Temporary insanity" is uniformly the verdict of your "crowner's 'quest" on such occasions; even a physician of any repute will honestly state on ordinary occasions, particularly when the patient has the benefit of his skill and experience in helping him to leave this wicked world, that he died of such and such a disorder, and will manfully state the name of the disorder, and the world gives him credit for his skill and integrity. Would gentlemen serving upon "crowners' 'quests" imitate this heroic example, instead of recording the foolish verdict of "temporary insanity," they would say, "The deceased _didn't know what to do with himself_!" This would be intelligible, and the faculty might stumble upon a remedy; but "temporary insanity" is too transitory, too fugitive to be grappled with, too vague and indefinite in its very name ever to do any good, and the patient is generally "past all surgery" before one suspects he is attacked with insanity, be it ever so temporary or evanescent: but in honestly recording that "he didn't know what to do with himself, _and thereby came by his death_," it would be but doing justice to that interesting malady. Thus it could be easily observed in all its stages, from its incipient symptoms at the gaming or any other well-garnished table, where it sometimes takes its rise, through all its phases and evolutions, till the malady comes to a _head_, and a man blows out his brains. The disease, through each of these changes, might be stayed in its progress, and society might be benefited by the honesty of the verdict. Shade of the "mild Abernethy!" how many thousands of thy patients laboured under this disorder! and how often did thy sagacious and provident spirit turn the halter into a skipping-rope, and, in order that thy patients should live, insist upon a few mouthfuls the less!