KrDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



231 



be, who does not feel this delicious part of i 

 the year tingle along his nerves like sparkling 

 champagne ! So sings Eliza Cook ; so sing 

 WE. 



Yet, alas ! such there are, who know not 

 what it is to offer up a fervent prayer in the 

 face of Heaven, to Him whose beautiful works 

 surround us ; while the dews of the morning 

 descend blandly, as if they were a visible ' 

 answer, assuring us that the breathings of a 

 sincere and simple heart are never rejected 

 by the Great Father of all ! What man or 

 woman, of the least sensibility, would not 

 feel reinvigorated — nay, created again anew, 

 as it were, by the western breeze— the odo- 

 riferous breath of Spring blowing briskly in 

 his or her face, clearing the eyes, and causing 

 them to gulp down whole draughts of fresh- 

 ness, bracing and stimulating beyond expres- 

 sion ! 



The motley blossoms of the orchard-trees 

 hang over us as we stroll along green lanes, 

 between high hedges of the sweet hawthorn 

 and the elegant wild briar, — whilst the sight 

 of their banks, soft with thick young grass, 

 and " cowslips wan, that hang the pensive 

 head," invite us, with dumb but most potent 

 eloquence, to take a roll. " To take a roll!'''' 

 Yes ; this is the best idea, after all, that we 

 can give of the overwhelming beauty of the 

 landscape. Yet only think of rolling under 

 a hedge, like a little boy, or a cow ! 



Well , suppose we are caught in the act, 

 — yet might we do worse than smother our 

 face in a watery bed of cowslips, wet with 

 May dews. Let us away then, at once ! 



PHRENOLOGY FOE THE MILLION. 

 No. L1V.— PHYSIOLOGY OF THE BRAIN. 



BY F. J. GALL, M.D. 



(Continued from Page 170.J 



In order to enable my readers to judge 

 of the cases in which a man, in relation to his 

 illegal actions, ought to be regarded as really 

 insane, I shall take into consideration first, in- 

 termittent alienations, during the paroxysms of 

 which certain faculties manifest themselves with 

 great energy ; second, partial alienations ; third, 

 the alienations called reasoning ones ; fourth, the 

 alienations accompanied with visions ; fifth, the 

 alienations which lead their suhjects to attempt 

 the lives of their friends, of their children, or of 

 other persons who have not offended them. 



Of Intermittent Alienations, during the access of 

 which certain Faculties or certain Propen- 

 sities manifest themselves with great energy. 



Some madmen, whose malady is intermittent? 

 manifest, during their paroxysms, a peculiar 

 energy in certain moral or intellectual faculties. 

 This is proved by the following examples. M. 

 Pinel speaks of a madman who, at all other 

 periods, and in his long intervals of tranquillity, 



was only an ordinary man ; but who, in his 

 paroxysms, discoursed on the events of the 

 revolution with all the force, dignity, and purity 

 of language which could have been expected from 

 the most accomplished scholar, and from the 

 soundest judgment. The same author repeats, 

 from Perfect, that a young person of very delicate 

 constitution, and subject to nervous affections, had 

 become insane ; and that, in her ravings, she 

 expressed herself with facility in very harmonious 

 English verses, though she had never before shown 

 any sort of disposition for poetry. Van Swieten 

 relates that a woman, during her paroxysms of 

 mania, showed a rare facility of versification, 

 though, till then, she had been solely occupied 

 in manual labor, and her understanding had 

 never been improved by cultivation. 



The facts given, thus far, exhibit only a more 

 energetic manifestation of certain faculties for 

 things, in themselves indifferent; but other 

 examples ehow that madmen may also experience 

 a great degree of irritation in their mischievous 

 qualities. M. Pinel repeatedly observed that 

 men, who were very sober in the calm intervals of 

 their periodical mania, gave themselves up to an 

 irresistible propensity to drunkenness on a return 

 of the paroxysms ; that others, in the same cir- 

 cumstances, could not abstain from stealing and 

 committing all sorts of roguery, whereas, in their 

 lucid intervals, they were cited as models of pro- 

 bity ; that mild and benevolent characters were 

 changed in consequence of insanity, into turbulent 

 spirits, quarrelsome, and sometimes wholly un- 

 social. He speaks of a man affected with very 

 inveterate periodical mania. His paroxysms 

 ordinarily continued from six to eight days of 

 each month, and offered the most striking contrast 

 to the natural state of the same individual. 

 During his lucid intervals, his physiognomy is 

 calm, his air mild and reserved, his answers are 

 modest, and full of propriety : he shows urbanity 

 in his manners, a severe probity, the desire of 

 obliging others, and expresses an ardent desire of 

 being cured of his malady ; but at the return of 

 the paroxysms, which is especially marked with a 

 certain redness of the face, by an intense heat in 

 the head, and by burning thirst, his gait is hasty, 

 the tone of his voice bold and arrogant, his looks 

 full of menace, and he experiences the most violent 

 propensity to provoke all who approach him, to 

 irritate them, and to contend with them to the last. 

 Another madman, says M. Pinel, of a mild and 

 peaceful character, seemed, during his paroxysms, 

 to be inspired with the demon of malice. His 

 mischievous activity had no rest; he shut up his 

 companions in their cells, provoked and struck 

 them, and, on all occasions, raised subjects for 

 quarrels. 



Of Partial Alienations. ' 



Nothing is more common in insane hospitals, 

 than to see individuals insane with respect to a 

 single idea, or a single propensity, and sensible 

 in all other respects. One of these madmen so 

 imposed on a magistrate who was visiting the 

 hospital at Bicetre, and succeeded so well in per- 

 sua ling him that he was a victim of the cupidity 

 and cruelty of hib relations, that the magistrate 

 had serious thoi ghts of examining his com- 

 plaints, and of set in the injured man at liberty. 



