separate chapter is devoted in the earlier part of the book. But how is it possible to define and classify accurately the shades of these terrible mental maladies, where all forms of delusion and violence act and re-act upon each other, and the unhappy subjects can only be allotted a proximate place in the dreary catalogue?

Nor is it only their own distorted natures which are to be regarded as a source of perpetual discord and affliction; the secondary effects upon those around them are often equally terrible, and many of the examples given in this book show the wide-spreading ruin which they create. People who might have lived useful and honored lives, left to their own inspirations, catch the subtle infection and "go to the bad;" sometimes from the fearful irritation they endure, sometimes from the direct counsel or example of the defective creature with whom they are connected.

A husband is tempted to forgery by his crazy, extravagant wife; —a wife is worn out with anxiety and labor, and is brought to the Salpêtrière because her husband is an incurable waster. Families

are set by the ears, and quarrels germinate thickly wherever certain specimens of the lucid insane are to be found. They are much more injurious than people who are regularly mad in the common sense of the word.

Two signs there are, says M. Trélat, by which, whatever their infinite variety in other respects, they are invariably marked. They are uniformly ungrateful—seem to have no sense of what is done for them by others. Secondly, it is impossible to make them listen to any advice: they never modify any of their determinations.

And what shall we say of the propagation of this terrible curse? Of seventy-seven cases noted down by our author, fifty-one were married: fifty-one families were actually caught in the meshes, with a corresponding fear for their descendants. The laws of hereditary transmission have lately been partially elucidated by scientific observations, all of which tend to confirm the extent of their influence. Hospital physicians, who see numbers of sick people, and especially those attached to asylums, who are also frequently brought in contact with the families of their patients, are struck with the persistent reappearance in children of the exterior and interior organization of their parents: features, expression of eye, voice, attitude, and gesture, even to the most mysterious depths of the moral organization.

Three centuries ago a member of an Italian family came to reside in France, and from that date no intercourse took place between the two branches of the house. Some fifteen or twenty years since a descendant of the French line being at Rome, sought out the old family; and on being introduced to its members, was struck with respectful surprise. He thought he saw before him his elderly French aunts with whom his childhood had been passed, and who had been dead many years. Here was the same eye, the same glance, the same nose-all the characteristics which create a marked

resemblance had been preserved on each side, whether in Italy or in France, notwithstanding divers intermarriages with other families and three centuries of separation.

In taking leave of M. Trélat, we may consider that he has enforced two lessons on his readers, in whose results this most interesting book may be summed up: firstly, the great care which should be exerted not to form alliance in marriage or in business, or indeed in any kind of close association with natures twisted towards any of these fatal peculiarities. Secondly, that we should watch ourselves in our predominant faults and weak-nesses, since nothing is more incontestable than that a moral fault may be cherished until it reacts upon the organization, and becomes in the end a hopeless curse unto children's children. Of whom amongst us can it be said that we possess a perfectly sane mind in a perfectly healthy body? M. Trélat laughed heartily when a lady generally supposed to be in possession of all her faculties looked up in his face after attentively perusing "La Folie Lucide," and observed with a slight shade of anxiety,-" et elle? et lui ?-et moi ?"

B. R. P.

LIX.-LADY HESTER STANHOPE.

PART II.

FLATTERY is sometimes a low retail business in which men expect to receive their money at interest; and sometimes it slides into the keenest satire.

The foolish fulsome flatteries which were common in Lady Hester's days would in our times be considered as insults in disguise. Society learns not to pander so much to this form of insincerity, now that it begins to recognise that the highest praise is the plainest and most straightforward truth, and that no lie can be profitable in the end. We cannot flatter those whom we really esteem, for friendship gives us a "rough courage," and reality need not be "treated daintily." Lady Hester's disposition was not one of those nervous organizations which relish praise because it fortifies confidence, and which are not likely to overstep the bounds of good sense because their vivid self-knowledge gives them acute perceptions of the ridiculous. From her earliest childhood, on the contrary, she was never content to be unnoticed; and her straining after reputation was a fault which deepened and intensified with time, engendering discontent with the ordinary avocations of life, and growing monstrous and unbecoming in her declining years. The childish self-conceit apparent in the diary of Lady Morgan, and

the cold tone of self-sufficiency in the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, are nothing to the contemptible puerilities of Lady Hester's latter days. There is a painful lesson to be learnt in all this. Ambition is not (as Pope called it) the " glorious fault of angels and of gods," or at least true greatness is not ambitious to attract observation to itself. Let Nature teach us. That tree is the finest which, without particularly attracting the eye, entwines its branches with others; that hill is the most beautiful that rises with no abrupt transition from the surrounding level; that sky is most glorious where no cloud is particularly distinct, but each with golden edge melts and mellows into a flood of light; that face is the most pleasant to look upon where no one feature calls for most admiration, but the whole is the beautiful type of the invisible spirit, lit up with changeful expression, the index of the soul. And again: two-thirds of the shades in a picture should be mere mezzotint; the depth of the shadow and the brightness of the light could not be seen but for these graduated tints. It is the unnoticed mortar which holds together the stones of the cathedral and protects it from utter destruction. And so true greatness works in silence and in strength. It is sometimes as the neglected shade on which the glory of others may appear, or as the tempered mortar which consolidates the well-being of society.

To return from this digression, it is curious to find in Lady Hester's words the echoes of Pitt's opinions on the men and events of his times. Buonaparte, she would say, had something naturally vulgar in his composition. "He took a little from Ossian, and a little from Cæsar, a little from this book, and a little from that, and made up altogether a good imitation of a man.” With the strong party prejudices of her set, she could not endure Mr. Canning, whose very name was sufficient to irritate her. With her fastidiousness about personal appearance, she found out that he had a low forehead, bad eyebrows, and was ill made every way. She pretended that he was the type of duplicity, and it was impossible to hide from him her instinctive antipathy. The fashions of the age did not prevent Lady Hester from passing the most severe judgments on some of its favorites. Aristocratic as she was in her fancies, she could not help exclaiming with indignation against the miserable ennui and coarse jokes by which some of the reunions were distinguished. Speaking of the Prince of Wales, she did not hesitate to say "what a mean creature he was;" she did not believe he had ever shown a spark of good feeling towards any human being. "How often," she would say, "he would delight in putting men of small incomes to inconvenience." It was one of his favorite jokes to bring ten or a dozen of his friends to drink wine at the house of a companion whom he knew could hardly raise a penny. One of these unfortunates, after being plunged head over ears in debt by this system, was invited to be present when the Prince was dressing himself before four great mirrors,

and was rewarded by the elegant gift of a wig, as he was supposed to be growing bald.* Lady Hester would describe with indignation his desertion of poor Sheridan, whom he allowed to be assaulted by bailiffs on his death-bed, or she would speak with scorn of the ladies of her day singing, "Hi-diddle-diddle the cat and the fiddle," while the king stood by and shouted out "Bravo!" Amongst the people who would at one time have agreed with Lady Hester in an unfavorable opinion of the Prince, we may mention Brummell, (the last of the dynasty of beaux who have immortalized themselves in England, from Beau Hewitt, Beau Fielding, Beau Nash, Beau Edgeworth, and others.) The genealogy of Brummell was nothing very remarkable. His grandfather kept a small shop in Bury-street, and let out furnished apartments. From the time of his residence at Eton, to his after appearance in the world, Brummell played his cards with remarkable assiduity. He professed great admiration for the niece of Pitt, to whom he may have been drawn by their mutual eccentricity. Both were characterized by remarkable independence, savoir-faire, and by vast impertinence, which greatly aided them in maintaining their power. One day Brummell was imprudent enough to exclaim in the presence of Lady Hester àpropos of a young officer of low descent, "Who is that colonel? Colonel what?" said he, in the peculiar manner which he aped. "Who ever heard of his father?" "Well," replied Lady Hester, "who ever heard of George Brummell's father?” They were at this moment in Bond Street, the most fashionable street of the time, and Brummell was terrified lest any one should hear. 66 Oh, Lady Hester," he said in a half serious whisper, bending over the door of the carriage, "nobody knew my father, and nobody would know myself, but for the absurd part I am playing. It is folly which is the making of me. If I did not stare Duchesses out of countenance, and nod to a Prince over my shoulder, I should be forgotten in a week. The world is silly, and I treat it as it deserves; you and I comprehend each other marvellously.” This audacious effrontery was the best mode of excusing himself to Lady Hester. From this time, she gave him full franchise, and by a sort of dumb complicity, obtained her share of admiration from the dandy.

Little accustomed to disguise her sentiments, Lady Hester took no pains to hide her dislike from the Prince of Wales. He sent to ask her one day why she disliked him so much, when she professed such an attachment for his royal brothers. "I shall like him,"

* Lady Hester may have maligned the Prince from personal pique. He had been one of the first to pass her without notice after the death of Pitt. It is curious that Sir W. Scott, who is generally supposed to have read characters, should have described George IV. as "a sovereign whose gentle and generous disposition, singular manners, and captivating appearance, rendered him as much the darling of society as his heart felt interest in the welfare of his country."

replied she, "when he is as harmless as they are." The Duke of Cumberland was particularly partial to Lady Hester, whom he called his little "aide-de-camp." She delighted to recall the compliments which William Pitt paid to her. He would say, for instance, according to her account, that he only knew one being in the world capable of disinterested friendship, and that being was herself. "If you were a man, Hester," he would exclaim at another time, "I could send you on the Continent to command an army, with the full confidence that none of my plans would fail." Lady Hester was quite of his opinion. She prided herself on being one of those rare individuals who unite the power of conceiving important plans with the most minute attention to administrative details. Her criticisms on the Duke of Wellington were highly characteristic. It was not sufficient that Mr. Pitt, during his last illness, spoke constantly of Arthur Wellesley with the highest admiration, praising especially the modesty with which he bore his reputation. To Lady Hester this man was but a rough soldier, wanting the dignity of a courtier. He was a man of pleasure, she said, who danced and drank hard: his "star" had done everything for him; he was no tactician, and not a good general. As for the battle of Waterloo, she believed it was sheer good luck.

The triumphs of Lady Hester were not destined to last for ever. The crisis in her life was at hand. It is said that Pompey told his wife she did wrong to be astonished at his reverses, because fortune had been on his side too long to give him any more of her favours. There seems to be a strange law of compensation in earthly things, by which each state of life has its own blessings and its own pains. We must all suffer in turn. There is undeniably a blight in uninterrupted prosperity; but few need fear it, for when we are sailing buoyantly over the waves of life, and our last sorrow is so far behind us that we almost forget its existence, we are sometimes so much nearer the next one. A vertigo of prosperity seems to be a law of our imperfect nature. Arrived at the highest point of distinction, men appear like buildings, which, when they tower too high, are more liable to disastrous falls.

During the lifetime of Pitt, Lady Hester never thought of inquiring how many of the praises which flattered her vanity were dependent on the prestige of his name; nor did it occur to her mind to reflect how little important she would be if her uncle were no longer in office. We need not linger on the account of Pitt's death as given by his niece. The details differ a little from those which are related by Gifford. This biographer asserted, on the authority of the doctor and the clergyman, that Mr. Pitt's last moments were spent in earnest prayer, and devoted to the consideration of religion. Lady Hester passionately denied this fact. According to her, Mr. Pitt's indifference to holy things had never abated, and he who never went to church during his lifetime was of the same mind upon his deathbed. It may give rise to fair suspicion that Lady Hester's account