LECTURE IV. 



SOME years ago, I was very intimate with the directing 

 physician of a large Lunatic Asylum, and I used industriously 

 to avail myself of the liberty I thus obtained, to visit at 

 will the house and its inhabitants. One morning I entered 

 the room of a madman, whose constantly varying hallucina- 

 tions especially interested me. I found him crouching 

 down by the stove, watching, with close attention, a 

 saucepan, the contents of which he was carefully stirring. 

 At the noise of my entrance, he turned round and, with 

 a face of the greatest importance, whispered : " Hush, 

 hush ! don't disturb my little pigs ; they will be ready 

 directly." Full of curiosity to know whither his diseased 

 imagination had now led him, I approached nearer. " You 

 see," said he, with the mysterious expression of an 

 alchemist, " here I have black-puddings, pigs' bones and 

 bristles in the saucepan, everything that is necessary, we 

 only want the vital warmth, and the young pig will be 

 ready made again." Laughable as this circumstance 

 appeared to me at the time, it has often recurred to me 

 since in seriousness, when I have reflected on certain errors 



