Aged thirty-four, London, admitted 15th March 1821. This patient was an
attorney at law, and was in this hospital before, admitted August 10th,
1820. His disease soon abated, and he was discharged quite well, on
the 19th of October in the same year. But probably a recurrence to his
former intercourse and round of amusement again disordered his mind,
and he was sent back here on the day above-named.
A high notion of professional superexcellence is a very usual
accompaniment to the state of mind which brings patients to this
asylum. The memory takes its share in the common delusions of the
other mental faculties. The ideas associate more intimately with the
incidents of former habits; and poor Mr. Upsdale, probably impressed
with a permanent notion of his own pre-eminence in the knowledge of his
profession, still thought he had no equal in the skill and practice
of an attorney; and when high mounted on this hobby, which was one of
his favourite nags, his details were as amusing as wild. According to
his own story, no man was more profoundly skilled in the laws of his
country, or the practice of the courts, above and below; and so sharp
was he, that he never lost a cause he once undertook. The other side,
whether plaintiff or defendant, always shook in their shoes where
he was concerned: he once went into court with a most intricate and
hopeless case, but he astonished the whole bar, flatly contradicted the
judge, bothered the special jury, and carried the verdict with a high
hand, “and swinging damages with double costs.”
But though professionally a limb of the law, his excellence there was
minor, and but secondary to his talents on the race-course: that was
his favourite field of action; he was a horse jockey by nature. The
dull drudgeries of the desk and Westminster Hall were not for his
lively taste, and therefore he relinquished the law list for the Racing
Kalendar: deserted John Doe and the court for the hippodrome, the
bang-up club, the chariot race, and the turf.
Not only was he the first whip in the kingdom, and up to every thing
on wheels, from a sky phaeton and six down to a tilbury, but was
deeply skilled in horse-flesh, and quite at home with the pedigree of
every bit of blood that had flourished at Newmarket, York, Epsom, or
elsewhere, from the days of Eclipse, Hamiltonian, and Diamond, down to
the present hour.
He knew all their sires and dams, to the tenth generation: could detail
the histories of all the plates, sweepstakes, and heats they had won or
lost; their triumphs in steeple-chases and trotting matches, and their
flying feats over double ditches, high walls, and five-bar gates: with
all the whens and wheres, and hows, and who were their riders: so “damn
all _fi-fa’s_, and _ca-sa’s_, _quitams_, _trespasses_, and _trovers_!
The turf! the turf! was his darling sport!” and the constant topics
of his conversation were his feats and fame at Newmarket, Carlisle,
York, and Epsom. The superiority of his cattle and the numerous studs
of “high-mettled racers” he always had ready for entry, to the number
of twenty or thirty; and he deplored the interruption of his detention
here, “as he must be at Newmarket by such or such a day, or lose
immense sums depending on his bets, “play or pay.”
Report says that this poor fellow was actually so infected by this
hippomania, that he deserted his profession and became a convert to
the studies of the stable in all the mysteries of physicing, bleeding,
sweating, training, and the whole pharmacy of the veterinary school.
His ultimate delight was in dashing to a race-course in his knowing
curricle, four-in-hand, quite in the Goldfinch style; and, of course,
he was considered by the sharps a finished greenhorn and fair game; he
was consequently cleaned out of all the money he could muster, until he
had nothing to “carry on the war” but his taste, as an amateur, until
his reason ran the wrong side of the post and brought him here.
Still, however, he talked of his numerous stud; the blood, bone,
figure, movements, speed, vices and perfections of his cattle; their
breeding, what they cost him, how the natives were astonished at their
excellence, what immense sums they had won, and what wonders he would
do in the racing world whenever he could get out.
Then his associates were all bloods of the first order, all tip-top
Corinthians. He would rank with none other. He had driven about in
prime sporting style, with the best appointments. His grooms, like his
horses, were all blood: true Newmarket breed, up to anything. And as to
himself, he was the best sporting judge on the turf, not excepting any
member of the whole jockey club.
But, notwithstanding these imaginary notions of his great wealth
and pre-eminence, the dashing Peter Upsdale was, in sober sadness,
very poor; and, but for the management of his excellent wife, and
the liberality of his friends, he would have been reduced to extreme
indigence.
He was discharged from this asylum well, for the second time,
in October 1822; since which he again called at the hospital in
his carriage: but his blood cattle have again run away with his
understanding, and he has been lately consigned to a private mad-house.