Case XXXVI

A gentleman, aged thirty-five, active, and in good health, living near London, had for five weeks complained of a slight headache. He was rather feverish, and neglected his avocations and his family. He had been cupped, and had taken some medicine, when he received a visit from Dr. Arnold, of Camberwell, by whose advice he was placed in an asylum, where he passed two years; his delirious fancies lessened by degrees, until he was restored to his family.

The details which he has given of his malady are so interesting that we do not hesitate to repeat them almost verbatim. "One afternoon in the month of May," says this gentleman, "feeling unwell, and little disposed for business, I determined to take a walk in the city, to divert myself. Having reached St. Paul's churchyard, I stopped at the print-shop of Oarrington and Bowles to look at some engravings of the Cathedral. I had been there but a short time, when an old gentleman, small, serious-looking, and dressed in brown, also stopped to examine them. Our eyes by chance meeting, he commenced a conversation, admired the view from St. Paul's, related several anecdotes of the architect, Sir Christopher Wren, and asked if I had ever been in the dome.

"On my replying in the negative, and finding that I had not dined, he proposed to repair to a neighboring tavern, and said that, after the repast, he would accompany me to St. Paul's; the day, he added, was magnificent for the view, and, as he was familiar with the place, he would point out all the objects of interest. The politeness of the old gentleman induced me to accept his invitation, and we went to a tavern, in a dark alley, the name of which I do not remember.

* British Review, July, 1803, p. 184. † Tissot, Serm. inaug. de litteratum valetudine, p. 20. ‡ Les Farfadots, ou tous les Demons ne sont pas de l'autre monde, par Berbiguier de Terre Neuve du Thym., 3 vols, in 8vo. Paris, 1821.

"After a hasty dinner, we mounted to the ball which is placed immediately under the cross, and we entered it alone. We had been there some minutes admiring the superb panorama before us, when the old gentleman drew from a side-pocket of his coat an instrument that resembled a compass, and on which some curious figures were engraved; he murmured some unintelligible words, and placed it in the centre of the ball.

"I was seized with a violent trembling and a kind of horror, which greatly increased on his offer to show me, if I wished, a distant friend, and, also, what he was at that moment doing. - My father had long been ill, and I had not been to see him for some weeks; the sudden wish to see him overcame all my scruples. No sooner had I formed this wish than I saw my father in a mirror; he was reclining in a chair, taking his usual nap. As I had somewhat doubted the power of the old gentleman, I was frozen with terror, and feeling very ill, begged him instantly to descend. He complied; and, on parting under the north portico, he said, ' Remember, that you are the slave of the man of the mirror.' I returned home, at night, unhappy, restless, and fearful, and full of thoughts of the stranger; for the last three months, I have never ceased to feel his power."

Dr. Arnold asked the patient in what manner the man of the mirror exercised his influence over him. Throwing a suspicious glance on the doctor, he took him by the arm, led him through two or three rooms, and at length into the garden, when he exclaimed: "It is useless; nothing can hide us from him, for every place is open to him; he sees and hears us now."

"I requested him," continued Dr. Arnold, "to show me the mysterious individual who saw and heard us. He replied, with much agitation, 'Have I not told you that he lives in the ball under the cross of St. Paul's, that he only comes down to walk in the churchyard, and to go and dine in the dark alley? Since that fatal meeting with the necromancer, for I cannot call him by any other name, he constantly attracts me within his mirror, sees me thus at all hours in the day, and reads my most secret thoughts; I have the terrible consciousness that no act of my life escapes his knowledge, and that there is no spot in which I can be hidden from him.' To my observation that the darkness of night ought to protect him against his machinations, he replied, 'I know what you would say; but you are wrong. I have only spoken to you of the mirror; but in a corner of the building the magician showed me a great clock, and I distinctly heard the sounds that came from it, and those that entered; it was a confused medley of laughter, cries of anger, of despair, and, as I listened in great terror, he said, "It is my organ of hearing." This great clock has communication with all the clocks that are in the hieroglyphic circle. By this means I hear the words of all those under my supervision.'

"As I gazed on the patient with surprise, he continued: ' I have not told you all; this necromancer practises his sorceries by means of hieroglyphics on the walls and houses, and he spreads his rod of fire over those whom he has inclosed in his circle of hieroglyphics, and who are the objects of his constant hatred.' I begged him to explain to me these hieroglyphics, and how he saw them. 'They are,' he answered, 'signs and symbols that you, in your ignorance of their real meaning, have read thus: Day and Martin, and Warren's Blacking [probably handbills]. You are in error. These signs are the cabalistic characters that he traces to intimate the limits of his empire, and to prevent the escape of his captives. What fatigues I have undergone to withdraw myself from his terrible influence! I once walked three days and three nights, until I fell, exhausted and breathless, against a wall, and slept. On waking, I saw the fatal letters, and felt that I was completely in his power.' "*

No case of hallucination can be more coherent and calculated to bring conviction to the minds of those uninitiated in this singular phenomenon, than the one just stated by Prichard. Doubtless, in the Middle Ages, this patient would have been supposed to be possessed, and have been subjected to the ceremonies of exorcism. I am persuaded that, in our days, such a history would find many believers. Authentic facts are related by persons of veracity, of apparitions that had revealed to them extraordinary things. The circumstantial details into which they entered, and the air of truth they assumed, dispelled all doubts.

* A Treatise on Insanity, and other Disorders affecting the Mind, by James Cowles Prichard, p. 455, London, 1835.

It is probable that this individual had visited St. Paul's; but, seized with insanity, certain recollections arose, were fantastically grouped, highly colored, and imagined, until they appeared realities to the sight.

M. Lelut, in a paper on purely sensorial madness, has published several facts, amongst which the following appears to bear on our subject: -