moral insanity; a state of exaggerated and perverted emo
tion, accompanied by violent and irregular conduct, but unconnected with intellectual aberration; until some phy sical shock is incurred—bodily illness, or accident, or ex posure to physical suffering ; and then the imperfect type of mental disease is converted into perfect lunacy, cha racterised by more or less profound affection of the intellect, by delusion or incoherence. This is evidently the case in Lear, and although I have never seen the point referred to by any writer, and have again and again read the play without perceiving it, I cannot doubt from the above quotations, and especially from the second, in which the poor madman's im perfect memory refers to his suffering in the storm, that{Shake speare contemplated this exposure and physical suffering as the cause of the first crisis in the malady. Our wonder at his profound knowledge of mental disease increases, the more carefully we study his works; here and elsewhere he dis plays with prolific carelessness a knowledge of principles, half of which, if well advertized, would make the reputation of a modern psychologist. It is remarkable, that in the very scene where Lear's madness is perfected, his first speeches are peculiarly reason ing and consecutive. Shakespeare had studied mental dis ease too closely, not to have observed the frequent concur rence of reason and unreason ; or the facile transition
from one state to the other. In Lear, his most perfect and elaborate representation of madness, he never rep resents the mental power as utterly lost; at no time is the intellectual aberration so complete that the old
king is incapable of wise and just remark. He is as a rudderless ship, which fills her sails from time to time, and directs her course aright, and to the eye observing for the moment only, her stately and well directed course speaks of no want of guidance ; but inward bias, or outward force,
