The particulars of the following fact are recorded in Mrs. Mathews’ life of her husband. Mathews the comedian had lived for some days a vapid and inactive life. His spirit had been pressed down, “cabin’d, cribb’d, confin’d.” In this state of mind, a party of gentlemen called upon him, and proposed a day’s excursion. Accordingly, they all mounted their horses. Mrs. Mathews says—“My husband’s depressed spirits were exhilarated by the beauty of the weather, and the prospect of a day’s pleasure (free from the restraint of a room, listening to truisms) in the open air, where he would have uncontrolled power to gaze upon his idol, Nature, in her most beautiful form. He had not ridden out of the city for some weeks, and was in a state of childish delight and excitement. At this moment his eyes turned upon one of the party, a very little man, who was perched on a very tall horse, and who seemed unusually grave and important. Mr. Mathews looked at him for a moment; and the next, knocked him off with a smart blow, felling him to the ground. The whole party were struck with horror; but no one felt more shocked than he who had committed the outrage. He dismounted, picked up the little victim to his unaccountable freak, declared himself unable to give any motive for the action, but that it was an impulse he could not resist; and afterwards, in relating this extraordinary incident, he declared his conviction that it was done in a moment of frenzy, induced by the too sudden reaction from previous stagnation of all freedom and amusement.” A young woman, about twenty years of age, who had been insane but a short time, and appeared to be recovering, after having assisted to whitewash and clean a ward in an asylum in which she was confined, was sitting, in the evening, taking tea with the nurse and several other inmates. She took advantage of the opportunity when the nurse went to the cupboard for some sugar to seize a knife with which some bread had just been cut; and in the presence of the whole party, in an instant, before her hand could be arrested, cut her throat in so dreadful a manner that she died almost immediately. A patient in the Asylum at Wakefield, the wife of a labourer, a kind-hearted and clever woman, was afflicted with such a propensity to destroy that she was almost constantly obliged to be kept in confinement; and when at liberty, she could not resist the pleasure of breaking anything she met with. In one instance, she saw some tea-cups on a table, and for some time walked backwards and forwards, and checked the inclination; but eventually the temptation proved too strong, and she swept them at once on to the floor. She afterwards regretted the circumstance; but the impulse was too powerful to be resisted. A monomaniac (says Esquirol) heard a voice within him repeat these words—“_Kill thyself! kill thyself!_” He therefore committed suicide, in obedience to this superior power, whose order he dare not withstand.