It may here be important to investigate the sources from whence the popular feeling and intelligence concerning madness have been derived; or in other words, what are the foundations for the opinions of the generality of persons, on the subject of insanity? Patient enquiry, daily communication with deranged persons and attentive observation of their habits, confer the means of judging on medical practitioners, and more especially on those, who have for a series of years, solely confined their practice to this department of the profession. The information of the lawyer is principally deduced from the writings of those great legal authorities to which he refers with confidence;—although these grave authorities have laid down _no definition of madness_, nor given any directions how to discover it. The ordinary class of persons, who are usually summoned to act as Jurymen; and who are sufficiently virtuous and intelligent; have in common with the mass of mankind formed their opinions of that state of mind which is denominated madness, and it should be observed that such opinions are not very easily removed or altered. It will be a curious and instructive enquiry, to investigate the circumstances which have, in all probability, contributed to fix their notions on the subject of insanity. They have wanted the means of direct information, and consequently have adopted the popular and floating opinions on this disease. That dramatic representations have forcibly operated for this purpose there is little reason to doubt: and some of the plays of Shakespear exhibit many of the forms which this malady is supposed to assume. Among such characters, none have more strongly fastened on the general mind, than the outrageous Lear, and the distracted Ophelia; the subtil craziness of Hamlet leaves it doubtful if his alienation of mind be real, or conveniently assumed—and to the ordinary observer conveys more of fiction, than the avowed counterfeit of Edgar. Romances, the literary food of the idle and thoughtless, abound in descriptions of intellectual calamity;—but these artificers of fancy, like many unskilful performers, are too prone to strain the loftier impressions of feeling, and distort the energies of passion, into mental derangement. Something of affecting interest may be excited by the weaknesses and wanderings of Maria, but Cervantes has exhibited the happiest and most correct picture of systematic insanity; although the vehicle of chivalry in which it is conveyed, has, to our own countrymen, blunted its interest as a physiological portrait of madness:—his sallies have provoked mirth, and so keen is the relish for the ridiculous, that in the luxury of laughter, the reader has forgotten the tribute of commiseration. Within my own recollection Bethlem Hospital gratified the curiosity of the vulgar of both sexes; these visitors were most eager to penetrate into the recesses of the furious and naked maniac: the hideous howlings of those violently