Of London, aged thirty-seven years, a minister of the Gospel,
originally admitted on the 3d of June 1819. This unfortunate clergyman,
towards the latter end of the year 1820, appeared to be quite
convalescent, and obtained leave of absence for six months, in hopes of
his perfect recovery: but after a short time his malady returned, and
he was brought back, and has remained here ever since. He is in general
perfectly tranquil and harmless, and for a period of three months
successively will behave remarkably well. He generally occupies himself
in reading and writing compositions of his own. But those occupations
appear ultimately to agitate his mind, and he gets quite high and
distracted, and so continues for a long time. During this state he has
usually a tobacco-pipe in his mouth; and from his language and conduct
none would suppose him ever to have been the pious, meek, charitable,
and philanthropic curer of souls, which at other times he wishes to be
thought. Sometimes the wildness of fanaticism seizes on his fancy, and
then he thinks himself to be Michael the archangel. Dr. Wright, one of
the physicians of the house, he styles Pontius Pilate, another he terms
Judas, a third the Devil, all in their turns.
He sometimes composes pieces in Latin, and then translates them, both,
in a style of incoherency such as might be expected from a scholar so
circumstanced. He composed, amongst other specimens of his genius, a
poetical address to his present Majesty King George the Fourth, highly
inflated, and comparing his Majesty to Augustus Cæsar. This production
he thought extremely sublime; and when his Royal Highness the Duke of
Sussex, accompanied by Prince Christian Frederic of Denmark, visited
this institution on the 10th of June 1822, the poetic parson begged
permission to read his production to those illustrious personages:
which being allowed, he proceeded to read with such gestures,
intonations, trepidation, and embarrassment, as excited the pity,
though it exhausted the patience of his princely hearers. At last his
Royal Highness, with great condescension and humanity, told him that
what he had already read would do, and requested he would defer the
remainder to some future opportunity; with this he seemed satisfied.
This poor gentleman was spoken of by his friends as a finished
classical scholar: and previously to his unfortunate illness, he was
curate of a parish church in London. When his lucid intervals return,
he is very cunning and artful in his endeavours to attain his object.
He speaks to the physician with all the demureness of a bashful girl:
but this is easily perceived to be acting, for he hopes by assuming
that manner to get leave of absence once more.
When he was last out, he tied the sheets and bed-clothes together
to let himself down from his window into the street, although the
street-door was open for him, and he might have gone out if he pleased.