HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT. 
xlv 
set aside. This misfortune may or may not assume a very 
decisive or sudden character in outward appearance, any 
more than other forms of monomania need necessarily be 
violent in their demonstrations. But, it is at work, nev¬ 
ertheless, and interfering with the normal coherence of 
ideas, especially if any acrimony of the blood is allowed 
to remain long enough for the creation of morbid humors. 
In all the arrangements made by Herbert for his suicide, 
funeral, etc., the usual vigor of his intellect expresses 
itself in the remarkably precise and deliberate directions 
he so rapidly gave in writing. He is “ all right,” except 
on the u one idea ”—and this wrong idea (without being, 
perhaps, perceptible to unpractised observers) was the 
result of a morbid condition—gradually superinducing an 
abnormal mentality—like the last efforts of an expiring 
flame, which finally destroys itself. 
There need be no doubt that if Herbert’s brain, plexus, 
arterial system, etc., had been restored to their usually 
harmonized degree of “ condition,” so noble and gifted a 
mind—instead of wrongfully supposing itself to be in the 
right—would never have committed the sad error of judg¬ 
ment we now so deeply deplore. The peculiar phase of 
phrenitis he labored under appears to have been quite 
sufficient for gradually taking away his moral accounta¬ 
bility. The lesson is sometimes taught to the most gifted 
minds—before they leave this sublunary sphere—that 
Heaven is our only Friend, our only Refuge, our only 
Saviour. Let us, therefore, fervently hope that human 
charity will leave poor Herbert’s final error to the only 
Power capable of judging that and all his other failings. 
These failings—or whatever they may be termed—are 
not mentioned here from any morbid desire to parade 
them in connection with so bright an example; for, be it 
remembered that, down to the last of Herbert’s instruc¬ 
tive life, the very manner of the unfortunate—most unfor- 
