Hospital, where he saw the patients lying on straw and in chains. He was distressed with the scene, and could not help believing that there was a more excellent way. He resolved that an attempt should be made to ameliorate their miserable condition. His proposition was made in the spring of 1792. Adopted, and the funds provided, steps were taken for erecting an institution in a healthy locality in the neighbourhood of York. "The ground was elevated, and the situation afforded excellent air and water, as well as a very extensive and diversified prospect." The illustration (Frontispiece) will convey a better idea than any verbal description of this unpretentious building. Its character as a labour of love and humanity was embodied in an inscription written at the time, which may be discovered whenever the foundation stone is disinterred:-- HOC FECIT AMICORUM CARITAS IN HUMANITATIS ARGUMENTUM ANNO DÑI MDCCXCII. Referring to the establishment of the Retreat, an American physician of celebrity in the department of Psychological Medicine says, "Merit of this kind is seldom duly appreciated by the world, for it does not strike the imagination like that of brilliant discoveries in the physical sciences, and the very reason that reforms like that in question are so obviously sanctioned and confirmed by common sense and the feelings of common humanity is apt to detract from the merit of those who conceive them."[115] There are several points to which I have devoted considerable labour among the archives of the Retreat, and on which I have had the advantage of frequently conversing with the author of the "Description of the Retreat" in former years. Among these I may refer to an interesting explanation of the origin of the now familiar term "Retreat" as applied to a lunatic asylum. One day the conversation in the family circle turned on the question, What name should be given to the proposed institution? when my grandmother, who was much interested in the establishment, quickly remarked that it should be called a _Retreat_. It was at once seen that feminine instinct had solved the question, and the name was adopted, "to convey the idea of what such an institution should be, namely, a place in which the unhappy might obtain a refuge; a quiet haven in which the shattered bark might find the means of reparation or of safety;"--a term which became the parent of numberless imitations, some of them, it must be confessed, only so called by a miserable irony. It need hardly be remarked that this term had been from an early period employed in the Church of Rome to indicate a place of resort for meditation and penance during certain periods of the year.