to proffer the delights of lordly luxury, and the sensualist gives up his past existence to embrace that of the sybarite. After all it is but a change of manner. “Am I a lord? and have I such a lady ? Or do I dream, or have I dream'd till now
I do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak; I smell sweet savours, and I feel soft things:– Upon my life, I am a lord, indeed; And not a tinker, nor Christophero Sly.— Well, bring our lady hither to our sight; And once again, a pot o' the smallest ale.” Self-identification is, indeed, no test of sanity or insanity. An insane man, who fancies himself made of butter, or of
glass, is not convinced to the contrary by fire not melting him, or blows not breaking him, and is not likely to be
convinced by the persistence of ordinary sensation in a sub stance which ought to be senseless. The power of the delusion which overlooks the attributes of that which it believes to
exist, is not likely to succumb to the attributes of that which it believes not to exist. Moreover sensation may be de fective or perverted, while emotion and intellect remain sound. The prick of Lear's pin might be inflicted on a limb which had lost the sense of feeling; and if the organs of vision
had been affected, Sebastian might neither have seen the glorious sun nor the pearl, or might have seen them multiplied or distorted. In the Comedy of Errors, madness is imputed to four of the
principal characters, namely, to the two pairs of twins. There is more of fanciful incident than of delineation of character in
this piece. The idea of insanity first presents itself to the mind of the courtesan to whom Antipholus of Ephesus denies
the ring he has had from her.
The idea once suggested is
eagerly seized upon by his shrewish wife and her partisans, to
interpret the violent and absurd conduct of her lord. Mis taken identity is again the pivot of the imputed madness, but
