a confidential friend, to whom he might impart a secret of importance; upon assuring him that he might trust me, he said, that the boards on which he walked, (the second story) were heated by subterraneous fires, under the direction of invisible and malicious agents, whose intentions, he was well convinced, were to consume him by degrees. From these considerations, I am inclined to think, that a _lucid interval_ includes all the circumstances, which I have enumerated in my definition of it. If the person, who is to examine the state of the patient's mind, be unacquainted with his peculiar opinions, he may be easily deceived, because, wanting this information, he will have no clue to direct his enquiries, and madmen do not always, nor immediately intrude their incoherent notions: they have sometimes such a high degree of control over their minds, that when they have any particular purpose to carry, they will affect to renounce those opinions, which shall have been judged inconsistent: and it is well known, that they have often dissembled their resentment, until a favourable opportunity has occurred of gratifying their revenge. Of this restraint, which madmen have sometimes the power of imposing on their opinions, the remark has been so frequent, that those who are more immediately about their persons, have termed it, in their rude phrase, _stifling the disorder_. Among the numerous instances of this cunning and dissimulation, which I have witnessed in insane persons, the relation of one case will be sufficient to exemplify the subject. An Essex farmer, about the middle age, had on one occasion so completely masked his disorder, that I was induced to suppose him well, when he was quite otherwise. He had not been at home many hours, before his derangement was discernable by all those, who came to congratulate him on the recovery of his reason. His impetuosity, and mischievous disposition daily increasing, he was sent to a private mad-house; there being, at that time, no vacancy in the hospital. Almost from the moment of his confinement he became tranquil, and orderly, but remonstrated on the injustice of his seclusion.