other (1 wish my lady readers would describe it,) this lady "Queen" not only paid me special attention at the "ball," but did me the grace of writing me the two following letters, which I trust, I perpetrate no impropriety in submitting to the reader.

"Mr. Permit me to inquire daily after your health, for I feel an indescribable interest in your welfare. Please keep a diary, and send it to me every evening for inspection. The employment will divert your mind from your nervous illnesses, and you will find us a real Queen. If you have any hallucinations, I should delight in being made a confidant of them. Do not fear me, that I would ridicule or betray anything you chose to write or say to me. You are a lawyer, and I should be grateful for your advice in some points of law. Indeed, I thing a good Providence sent you here to protect and right us all. We trust you have recovered from the fatigues of the evening, and have regained your wonted elasticity of spirits, so that you are now enjoying all the happiness, peace of mind and amusements, which the place can afford you, and that you do not find it as we do "Castle Hopeless." Mon Dieu! that the world had seen fit to make a doctor of us, that we might attend upon you, and thus, that in a few weeks, you might be restored to health, society and friends, of whom we are confident, you must be the darling.

We are yours, en amitie,

VICTORIA THE QUEEN.
Castle Despondency, Oct. 22d, 18—.
To his Grace le Duc de Montalbert.

This letter was handed me by "our doctor," with a mild grin on his handsome face, the day succeeding our festivity. I trust from the spirit of my narrative and comments hitherto, that none of my readers can imagine me, as expressing or feeling one particle of ridicule, as touching this letter. No, my feelings were those of measureless sorrow, and regretful tenderness. Nor did it need, that I should remember that my mother and sisters were women. My own native respect for womanhood, was enough; I therefore took my pen, and wrote the very best letter my poor faculties could compass, and sent it through our friend the "doctor." A reply came the day after, which I subjoin "verbatim et literatim."

"Mr.. I know not how to vindicate my temerity in addressing you in the foolish manner I did upon the trifling acquaintance I had formed with you. The interest I felt and expressed in you, was altogether on the supposition of your being an insane man, and an invalid; and, you will pardon any unkind or improper language, in my very silly and ill-timed note, and all my derelic

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tions from the approved etiquette of the day, by taking into consideration my long seclusion from the polite and literary world, in this Bedlam, among mad women, etc.

"I did term this regal palace of ours, "Castle Hopeless," without however, intending to obtrude my own idea of it upon you; and, if I complained to you of any evils, I did so inadvertently. Still, I think we might appropriately name it "Castle Demoniac." We regret having obtruded upon you what we doubt not you regard as our insolence, lest we may have excited or offended you. We may as well be perfectly ingenuous, and by repentance and confession of our fault, hope for your pardon. The truth is, we supposed you a little out of order in the "attic," simply from meeting you in this same abode of lunacy, and we were practising upon you, as we had upon others, for the frolic of the moment, to draw you out; but, we assure you, with no design to mortify or injure you, had we succeeded. Idleness is said to be the parent of vice; and, undeniably it is the mother of mischief. As we were totally unemployed, we did hope to extract amusement from some of your vagaries; but your beautiful answer to our wild epistle has not only undeceived us, but has put us to the torture of being exposed ourself to the shafts of your ridicule. Your excessive fatigue and unearthly paleness, after dancing with us on Wednesday evening, alarmed us for your health, and called forth the womanly tenderness of our queenly heart; and, we had nearly offered you our services as a nurse, with real maternal dignity, however; but, the chilling reserve and fastidiousness, of you American gentlemen congeal, ere they can flow into any right channel, all our fervor and warm affections, and often cause a revulsion of feeling, that gives us an appearance of coldness and hauteur, which is quite foreign to the nature of the Stuarts. And this may, perhaps, occur at the very moment, when we would almost sacrifice our existence to preserve the life or dignity of those, who have acquired an influence with us. We are most happy to learn, that you are scourged by no hallucinations, and that your heart and imagination are under the control of reason. As such is the case, we shall, doubtless, be very soon deprived of your society. But we are too entirely disinterested ourself, to suffer one murmur of discontent, or a single sigh of regret at being detained here without an object to interest us; with none to whom we can whisper "solitude is sweet," while you are pronounced "clothed and in your right mind," and restored to your "ain fireside," and to the kind watchfulness and care of an affectionate wife. Yet, when we take a retrospect of the last ten years, so fraught

so-named lunatic accesses, were simply fits of intoxication. And, now I found her here, and was simply told, that this was the fourth or fifth time she had been thus confined.

My informant then pointed out a lady sitting near, as a victim from a different cause. She was petite of size, with an amiable face, but one stamped with the most hopelessly sad expression I ever witnessed, even when it wore a smile as it sometimes did. She was a Southern lady, who, in the very hey-day of health, prosperity and hope, had her whole family of seven children stricken down into the grave by scarlet fever, within a few successive days. The fine mechanism of the reason was shattered by the suddenness and immensity of this bereavement, and for some years she had been here, a melancholy looking patient, of the class pronounced incurable. It was so far a virtual alleviation of her case, that probably she retained no distinct remembrance of her loss, and that this mournful expression, was rather the shadow left by the passing wing of Death, than the manifestation of a pain consciously present. I cannot help thinking it possible, that these lunatic incurables may have solaces vouchsafed them, which we dream not of. Who knows, but that through the rents of the mind's mortal tenement, that immortal being within, itself impervious to harm, may be visited by bright gleams and entrancing visions, from that supernal sphere, where the reason is never obscured, and sorrow, pain and death, are names unknown? Who shall say that this hapless mother had not been often gladdened by the visible presence of those young creatures, whose graves swallowed up the light of her earthly existence, now wearing the glory of their divine transfiguration; child-angels, who "do always behold the face of their Father in Heaven?" In such a supposition there is nothing inconsistent with the ways of Him whose love measureless alike in great things and small, spans a hemisphere with His prismatic arch, or curtains the couch of dying day with ineffable splendors, and again lavishes all the resources of light in painting the butterfly's wing, or in decking the lily with a garb, that shames the "glory of Solomon."

I have thus furnished a few samples of what I saw, and experienced in this Asylum. Whether I shall continue a subject, on which as yet I have scarcely entered, is uncertain. At all events, my present space is so far exhausted, that I can but touch on two practical suggestions, respecting the proper regimen of the insane. Excellent as the system of this Asylum was in many particulars, I thought then and still more decidedly now, that as regards diet and cold bathing, it was gravely defective. Boiled corned

beef, hard generally, and tough often, made the dinner several days of the week, one of the most indigestible of all aliments. Thus taxing and disturbing the stomach, it irritated and excited the nervous system, from the close connexion and reciprocal action of the two; and the mustard, vinegar, &c., commonly added as condiments, tended to augment this irritation. Now, insanity is believed to have much to do with nervous perturbation. How obvious, then, and urgent the importance of restricting the diet to articles which least operate to produce this effect.

Again, cold bathing was a remedy, very rarely, if ever administered. Except for the slight morning ablutions of the face and hands, and for the occasional subjection to control of a raving patient through the shower-bath, I do not remember ever seeing cold water used, otherwise than as a drink. Strange, that the known effect of one mode of its application in subduing frenzy should not have suggested other modes of application. Certainly every one, who has ever tried the many various ways in which hydropathy applies cold water to the system, knows that each and all exert an almost magical power to quiet and refresh the nerves, over and above whatever other remedial agencies they may exert, if any such they do. Consider, also, the inestimable value of water in keeping the skin free of the sediment deposited thereon by the evaporation of the insensible perspiration; a sediment, which choking the pores, and thus preventing the escape of the waste matters, which should issue thence, throws these matters back upon interior organs, thus again, creating nervous disturbance, as well as other maladies. Now, here are many various modes in which cold water serves to tranquilize nervous irritation, and thus to strike at the very root of lunacy, and yet, advantages are neglected. for some inexplicable reason, these immense

tried, is briefly this:-As a general rule, let What I most earnestly desire seeing fairly too stimulative, and let all the various grains, animal food of every kind be superseded, as garden vegetables and fruits, be used instead. At the same time let cold water be applied daily, and oftener if indicated, to

the whole surface, in the several methods employed by educated and judicious hydropathists. If these two measures did not, and of the most marvellous quality, I would corthat speedily too, produce curative results dially consent to be, like Dogberry, “written down an ass."

Another chapter gathered from my experience at a Lunatic Asylum may be given hereafter.

SPIRITUAL DIALOGUES.

DIALOGUE VI.

ARISTIDES. JAY.

W. the Elder. My dear Aristides-this prompt and courteous acceptance of my invitation, is indeed most gratifying. Allow me to make you acquainted with my venerated countryman, John Jay.

Aris. Ah, I am charmed to see him. His name and fame have long been familiar to me. I wonder we have never met before.

Jay. It is strange, considering the liberties we ghosts are allowed, now-a-days. How different from the old regime! Then, we never used to think of showing ourselves till long after sun-down, you know; never got an invitation from any quarter, or a very cordial welcome, when we did venture to make a call-now, we knock around, in broad daylight, in the most free and friendly style, and without the slightest regard to the unities.

Aris. Even so. This is the era of innovations of all sorts, all over the universe. None of the old-fashioned doctrines, either in manners or in morals, in science or in art, seem to be listened to any longer. I am sorry to see it. The unities, indeed! Why, Judge, the idea of presenting a play to an Athenian audience, in my day, wherein there was the slightest violation of any one of them, would not have been tolerated for a moment. Such a performance would have been hissed at once from the stage, with indignation. You see how it is now; and, indeed, ever since that popular transgressor of all laws, Shakspeare, has come into being. Confound the fellow! he flirts with all the nine Muses at once; is eternally laughing out of one eye, and crying out of the other; and yet, some how or other, the dog is so fascinating, so grand, so irresistible, that criticism is completely disarmed, nay, swallowed up in admiration. Sophocles himself, by the way, made the same remark to me, but an evening or two ago, in an adjoining luminary, while we were listening to that delicious play-The Merchant of Venice.

ly speaking, my friend, at a venture; taking it for granted that he has got something magnificent ready for us. It is some time, now, since his Napoleon was produced.

W. the Elder. What, has he written a play on that theme?

Aris. Yes, truly, a most sublime tragedy. Many critics consider it, especially the last act, his master-work. It certainly is in his happiest vein. I remember nothing in Othello or Lear, more affecting than the dying speech of the imperial exile. But my friend, the Judge, here, may not be such a votary of the drama, as we Athenians are, and always have been. So, let's change the subject. Do tell us, Judge, where have you been keeping yourself all this time? How is it, that two such kindred spirits, and lovers of justice, as ourselves, have not been brought together long ago?

Jay. As I said before, I don't understand it. To be sure, I've been a good deal of a recluse of late; locked in my chambers, up to my very eyes in books and papers. Indeed, the whole bench have been sadly bothered and overworked, for some time past.

Aris. What subjects have you been particularly investigating?

Jay. Well, a great variety. The main items of annoyance, however, have grown out of certain new-fangled opinions, and absurd attempts at legislation in our planet, on the subject of Female Ghosts' Rights.

W. the Elder. Ah, there's been a good deal of stir on that topic, in these regions, of late.

And are all you

Greeks such enthusiastic Shakspearians? Aris. Indeed we are. And is there any ghost, anywhere, of the slightest pretensions to culture, who is not acquainted with him, is not an eager student, alike of his terrestrial and celestial productions? Is there a single theatre in any star in heaven, the manager of which would not be perfectly crazy to bring out his last play?

W. the Elder. Ah, what is it? What does he call it?

Aris. I don't know, indeed. I was mere

Aris. The impertinent whelp! Why, these are new doctrines.

Jay. But, my friend, we mean to be firm. We shall not yield an inch to any such insolence or absurdity. The law is as clear as it is sound, on this subject; and we intend to expound and apply it, like honest ghosts. Yes, the good old-fashioned doctrine of the common law, founded on good sense and experience, and the best instincts of the heart. And we mean to do all we can, as spiritual