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    of reverend , divines , he ends with making ' it almost a paradise . We lose the idea of horror in that of grandeur . We pass over the burning marl without pain when Pandemonium rises in its beauty . In the very catalogue of the satanic armies we are carried to

    all the solemn temples and glorious images of the ancient world . And for the ' * leader of these armies bright /* who ever felt any thing but admiration and sympathy ? To make a stand against omnipotence makes him more than conqueror . If the doctrines of Calvinism were ever so true , Paradise

    Lost would remain as pure a fiction as ever was written . " Those worlds of heaven and hell , that magnificent chaos through which the hero makes so sublime a progress in a hundred lines , — those angels whether successful or defeated—the gorgeous palaces of hell , and

    that everlasting throne , which have so real a presence in the poem—have no existence in any creed which has ever been invented . They are the mighty creation of the poet ' s own genius , assoiled from all encumbrance of systems , untrammelled even by any distinctions of matter and spirit , and orthodox in nothing but in name .

    At all events the doctrine of endless misery , if it has any thing sublime about it , must be disbelieved in order to Ijc enjoyed . Indeed how is it possible to enter into any of the enjoyments of life with an idea of such

    a reality present with us . While we think that the people among whom we live and move , those with whom we are holding daily intercourse by the perpetual courtesies of life , those perbiaps whom we love with an affection that death cannot extinguish—will be

    tormented in unspeakable agonies for ever , we can scarcely derive gratification from the sublimity of our own conceptions . A man might rather exult in having witnessed the mortal agonies of a friend , to shew in what dreadful colouring he could paint them .

    In this world , thank God , there we no beings of this description . That W one can talk of the sublimity of " « conteniplatipn pji eternal torture , Wtys that Tie does not in heart believe lt k The man wno , in the mansions rte ^ eqne ^ . could derive sati sfac"W * fltopa the miseries of his brethren , ™* % \> PVbiily ; unfit fpr heaven . Even ** $## who fiddfed on a tower

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    while Rome was in flames , would become humane in comparison with one who could thus smile over the wreck of a world . Next month I will reverse the picture . S . N . D .

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    _ Si r , , June 23 , 1816 . npHE following historical extract JL may serve to compare , or rather to contrast the wise and humane treatment of the insane which is now peculiarly encouraged , with the ignorance and barbarity formerly displayed

    towards that afflicted portion of our race . It may well be expected to moderate the admiration of the golden days of good Queen JBess and to excite the admonition , Say not that the former days were better than these .

    Bedjam , which had been for many years a receptacle for lunatics , was then on the spot which is now called Old JBethlem . The Marshalsea , in Southwark , appears always to have been a prison . " 156 V . —The 10 th of April was

    one William Geffrie whipped from the Marshalsea in Southwark , to Bed ^ - lem without Bishopsgate of London , for that he professed one John Moore to be Christ our Saviour . On his

    head was set a paper , wherein was written as followeth : William Geffrie , a most blasphemous heretic , denying Christ our Saviour in heaven . The said Geffrie being stayed at Bedlem gate , John Moore was brought forth , before whom William Geffrie was whipped , till he confessed Christ to be in

    heaven . Then the said John Moore being examined , and answering overthwartly , was commanded to put off his coat , doublet , and shirt , which he seemed to do very willingly , and after being tied to the cart , was whipped an arrow ' s shot from Bedleni , where at the last he also confessed

    Christ to be in heaven and himself to be a sinful man . Then was John Moore sent again into Bedlem , and Geffrie to the Marshalsea , where they had lain prisoners nigh a year and a half , the one for professing himself to be Christ , the other ja , disciple of th « same Christ' Hollingshed , 111 . 1194 .

    Such were the moraj discernment and . the Christian spirit of an age which had undertaken tfre extraordinary task pf jfowung articles fand imposing creeds to save posterity , Christ-

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    Treatment of ' the Insane 1561 . 385

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1816, page 385, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2454/page/13/