This paper forms No. 125 of _The Tatler_, January 26th, 1709.
From my own apartment, _January_ 25.
There is a sect of ancient philosophers, who, I think, have left more
volumes behind them, and those better written, than any other of the
fraternities in philosophy. It was a maxim of this sect, that all those
who do not live up to the principles of reason and virtue are madmen.
Everyone who governs himself by these rules is allowed the title of
wise, and reputed to be in his senses: and everyone, in proportion as
he deviates from them, is pronounced frantic and distracted. Cicero,
having chosen this maxim for his theme, takes occasion to argue from
it very agreeably with Clodius, his implacable adversary, who had
procured his banishment. A city, says he, is an assembly distinguished
into bodies of men, who are in possession of their respective rights
and privileges, cast under proper subordinations, and in all its parts
obedient to the rules of law and equity. He then represents the
government from whence he was banished, at a time when the consul,
senate, and laws had lost their authority, as a commonwealth of
lunatics. For this reason he regards his expulsion from Rome as a man
would being turned out of Bedlam, if the inhabitants of it should drive
him out of their walls as a person unfit for their community. We are
therefore to look upon every man's brain to be touched, however he may
appear in the general conduct of his life, if he has an unjustifiable
singularity in any part of his conversation or behaviour; or if he
swerves from right reason, however common his kind of madness may be,
we shall not excuse him for its being epidemical; it being our present
design to clap up all such as have the marks of madness upon them, who
are now permitted to go about the streets for no other reason but
because they do no mischief in their fits. Abundance of imaginary great
men are put in straw to bring them to a right sense of themselves. And
is it not altogether as reasonable, that an insignificant man, who has
an immoderate opinion of his merits, and a quite different notion of
his own abilities from what the rest of the world entertain, should
have the same care taken of him as a beggar who fancies himself a duke
or a prince? Or why should a man who starves in the midst of plenty be
trusted with himself more than he who fancies he is an emperor in the
midst of poverty? I have several women of quality in my thoughts who
set so exorbitant a value upon themselves that I have often most
heartily pitied them, and wished them for their recovery under the same
discipline with the pewterer's wife. I find by several hints in ancient
authors that when the Romans were in the height of power and luxury
they assigned out of their vast dominions an island called Anticyra as
an habitation for madmen. This was the Bedlam of the Roman empire,
whither all persons who had lost their wits used to resort from all
parts of the world in quest of them. Several of the Roman emperors were
advised to repair to this island: but most of them, instead of
listening to such sober counsels, gave way to their distraction, until
the people knocked them on the head as despairing of their cure. In
short, it was as usual for men of distempered brains to take a voyage
to Anticyra in those days as it is in ours for persons who have a
disorder in their lungs to go to Montpellier.
The prodigious crops of hellebore with which this whole island abounded
did not only furnish them with incomparable tea, snuff, and Hungary
water, but impregnated the air of the country with such sober and
salutiferous steams as very much comforted the heads and refreshed the
senses of all that breathed in it. A discarded statesman that, at his
first landing, appeared stark, staring mad, would become calm in a
week's time, and upon his return home live easy and satisfied in his
retirement. A moping lover would grow a pleasant fellow by that time he
had rid thrice about the island: and a hair-brained rake, after a short
stay in the country, go home again a composed, grave, worthy gentleman.
I have premised these particulars before I enter on the main design of
this paper, because I would not be thought altogether notional in what
I have to say, and pass only for a projector in morality. I could quote
Horace and Seneca and some other ancient writers of good repute upon
the same occasion, and make out by their testimony that our streets are
filled with distracted persons; that our shops and taverns, private and
public houses, swarm with them; and that it is very hard to make up a
tolerable assembly without a majority of them. But what I have already
said is, I hope, sufficient to justify the ensuing project, which I
shall therefore give some account of without any further preface.
1. It is humbly proposed, That a proper receptacle or habitation be
forthwith erected for all such persons as, upon due trial and
examination, shall appear to be out of their wits.
2. That, to serve the present exigency, the college in Moorfields be
very much extended at both ends; and that it be converted into a
square, by adding three other sides to it.
3. That nobody be admitted into these three additional sides but such
whose frenzy can lay no claim to any apartment in that row of building
which is already erected.
4. That the architect, physician, apothecary, surgeon, keepers, nurses,
and porters be all and each of them cracked, provided that their frenzy
does not lie in the profession or employment to which they shall
severally and respectively be assigned.
_N.B._ It is thought fit to give the foregoing notice, that none may
present himself here for any post of honour or profit who is not duly
qualified.
5. That over all the gates of the additional buildings there be figures
placed in the same manner as over the entrance of the edifice already
erected, provided they represent such distractions only as are proper
for those additional buildings; as of an envious man gnawing his own
flesh; a gamester pulling himself by the ears and knocking his head
against a marble pillar; a covetous man warming himself over a heap of
gold; a coward flying from his own shadow, and the like.
Having laid down this general scheme of my design, I do hereby invite
all persons who are willing to encourage so public-spirited a project
to bring in their contributions as soon as possible; and to apprehend
forthwith any politician whom they shall catch raving in a
coffee-house, or any free-thinker whom they shall find publishing his
deliriums, or any other person who shall give the like manifest signs
of a crazed imagination. And I do at the same time give this public
notice to all the madmen about this great city, that they may return to
their senses with all imaginable expedition, lest, if they should come
into my hands, I should put them into a regimen which they would not
like; for if I find any one of them persist in his frantic behaviour I
will make him in a month's time as famous as ever Oliver's porter was.