A few days previously she had exhibited signs of lunacy, from which she had previously suffered, and her brother—in this lay the self-wounding sting for such a nature as Elia’s—had endeavoured on the morning of the occurrence to see Dr. Pitcairn, and had failed. ‘Had that gentleman,’ it is suggested, ‘seen her, the catastrophe might have been averted.’ What a scene for the young clerk at the India House! He was then only twenty-one, and, like his unhappy sister, working against the tide to help the straitened means of their parents. It was elicited at the inquest that no one could be more affectionate to both father and mother than the unconscious matricide, and that to the increased attentiveness which the growing infirmities of the latter required, added to the pressure of business, was to be ascribed the loss of the daughter’s reason. Poor Lamb had himself once suffered from the same sad malady. He has been censured for sometimes yielding to drinking habits, but the memory of that one day in his life—the very threshold, rather, as it may be called—might well plead in merciful extenuation. At times throughout her life Mary Lamb was subject to fits of mental aberration, the approach of which she was conscious of, and on these occasions would request to be taken to the abode at Finchley, where she found safety and remedial treatment. One other event in modern times has caused widespread and painful commotion in association with Hampstead Heath, the suicide of John Sadleir, Esq., M.P. for Tipperary. I well remember the excitement on the occasion, and the rapidity with which the story was bruited about. Early in the morning of Sunday, February 17, 1856, a man was looking for a strayed donkey amongst the furze-bushes on the south side of the old watercourse (now obliterated), when he came upon the dead body of a well-dressed man. A silver cream-ewer and a small bottle lay beside him, his head resting near an old furze-clump, and his feet almost touching the water. His hat had fallen off, and his lips gave out the scent of prussic acid.