She was of opinion that more persons were killed by affections of the mind, than by intemperance, or by the sword; this she attempts to explain by some weak reasoning from a baseless theory; but the proofs which she adduces in support of the assertion are curious. Many persons she says, who in her own time had fallen under the King's displeasure, or even received a harsh word from him, had taken to their beds and died. It was not uncommon for wives who loved their husbands dearly, to die a few days after them; two such instances had occurred within the same week in the town in which she resided: and she adds the more affecting fact that the female slaves of the better kind (_esclavas abiles_) meaning perhaps those upon whom any care had been bestowed, were frequently observed to pine away as they grew up, and perish; and that this was still more frequent with those who had a child born to an inheritance of slavery. Mortified ambition, irremediable grief, and hopeless misery, had within her observation, produced the same fatal effect. The general fact is supported by Harvey's testimony. That eminent man said to Bishop Hacket that during the Great Rebellion, more persons whom he had seen in the course of his practice died of grief of mind than of any other disease. In France it was observed not only that nervous diseases of every kind became much more frequent during the revolution but cases of cancer also,—moral causes producing in women a predisposition to that most dreadful disease. Our friend was fortunate enough to live in peaceful times, when there were no public calamities to increase the sum of human suffering. Yet even then, and within the limits of his own not extensive circle, he saw cases enough to teach him that it is difficult to minister to a mind diseased, but that for a worm in the core there is no remedy within the power of man. He liked Doña Oliva for the humanity which her observations upon this subject implies. He liked her also for following the indications of nature in part of her practise; much the better he liked her for prescribing all soothing circumstances and all inducements to cheerfulness that were possible; and nothing the worse for having carried some of her notions to a whimsical extent. He had built an Infirmary in the air himself, others he said, might build Castles there.