There is a reason why eccentricity of character seems to be much more frequent in England than in other countries.— Here some reflective reader, methinks, interrupts me with—“seems, good Author?” “Aye, and it is!” Have patience good reader, and hear me to the end! There is a reason why it seems so; and the reason is, because all such eccentricities are recorded here in newspapers and magazines, so that none of them are lost; anti the most remarkable are brought forward from time to time, in popular compilations. A collection of what is called Eccentric Biography is to form a portion of Mr. Murray's Family Library. But eccentric characters probably are more frequent among us than among most other nations; and for this there are two causes. The first is to be found in that spirit of independence upon which the English pride themselves, and which produces a sort of Drawcansir-like bravery in men who are eccentrically inclined. It becomes a perverse sort of pleasure in them to act preposterously, for the sake of showing that they have a right to do as they please, and the courage to exercise that right, let the rest of the world think what it will of their conduct. The other reason is that mad-houses very insufficiently supply the place of convents, and very ill also. It might almost be questioned whether convents do not well nigh make amends to humanity for their manifold mischiefs and abominations, by the relief which they afford as asylums for insanity, in so many of its forms and gradations. They afford a cure also in many of its stages, and precisely upon the same principle on which the treatment in mad-houses is founded: but oh! how differently is that principle applied! That passive obedience to anothers will which in the one case is exacted by authority acting through fear, and oftentimes enforced by no scrupulous or tender means, is in the other required as a religious duty—an act of virtue,—a voluntary and accepted sacrifice,—a good work which will be carried to the patient's account in the world to come. They who enter a convent are to have no will of their own there; they renounce it solemnly upon their admission; and when this abnegation is sincerely made, the chief mental cause of insanity is removed. For assuredly in most cases madness is more frequently a disease of the will than of the intellect. When Diabolus appeared before the town of Mansoul, and made his oration to the citizens at Ear-Gate, Lord Will-be-will was one of the first that was for consenting to his words, and letting him into the town.