Harsnet says, 66 Shortly after they (the spirits) were all cast forth, and in such manner as Mr. Edmunds directed them, which was, that every devil should depart in some certaine forme, representing either a beast or some other creature that had the resemblance of that sinne whereof he was the chief author; whereupon the spirit of pride departed in the forme of a peacocke; the spirit of sloth in the likeness of an asse; the spirit of envie in the similitude of a dog; the spirit of gluttony in the form of a wolfe; and the other devils also had in their departure their particular likenesses, agreeable to their natures."

This explanation by Dr. Harsnet (Archbishop of York) leads to the consideration of another theory in madness, which Sauvages speaks of in the following terms. "Duos lycanthropos se vidisse testatur Donatus ab Altomari qui per avia vagabantur, cadavera humana aut partes eorum secum gestantes; de cætero luridos, siccos, adustos, sitientes eos depingit, at locomoriam omnino referant.”

This variety is called Melancholia Zoanthropia and the sufferer labours under the delusion, that he is a wolf, and howls in imitation of that animal. The classical reader will probably associate the terin lycanthropos with what he has read or heard of the Neuri, a people of Livonia, who were supposed to have the power of transforming themselves at pleasure into wolves, and who are noticed by Pomponius Mela, Herodotus, and others.—

On considering Harsnet's exposure of the course pursued by the priests to deceive their patients, with the classification of the species of insanity by Sauvages, it appears probable that the whole of the tradition is founded in mental disease; the Greeks certainly had a malady to which they gave the name of Lycanthropy, a frenzy in which the patient fancied himself possessed by a wolf; and wolf-mania has frequently come under the observation of physicians in England. Arnold would class it under the species notional delirium. Impostors are frequently seen in country towns, who have a method of heaving their stomachs, to impose a belief, that they have, as they say,-a wolf in the belly. This is a species of mendicity, similar to that assumed by Edgar, only the pretended demoniac makes a wolf his devil.

HEREDITARY PREDISPOSITION TO MANIA.

"It is a melancholy reflection," says Dr. Good in his study of medicine, "that insanity is often the result of an hereditary predisposition. This, indeed, has been denied by a few writers; but their opinion has unhappily, been lost in the concurrent voice of those who have thought differently, and the irresistible evidence of daily facts. Mysterious as the subject is, we have perpetual proofs that a peculiarity of mental characters is just as propagable as a peculiarity of corporeality; and hence, wit, madness, and idiotism, are as distinctly an heir-loom of some families, as scrofula, consumption, or cancer."

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Every medical man possessed of a moderate share of experience must have observed that the children of those who have been insane are more liable to attacks of delirium and alienation of mind than the descendants of other people; insomuch that when a numerous family has sprung from parents who are tainted, it rarely happens that insanity is not produced in some of that family during part of their lives, by any slight exciting causes. If they marry and beget children, the same thing is also observed among them. This fact makes us conclude, that many have an hereditary right, or in other words, are born with a predisposition to the complaint." Crighton, 184.

Dr. Reid has justly observed that "To be well born," is a circumstance of real importance; but not in the sense in which that expression is usually employed. The most substantial privileges of birth are not those which are confined to the descendants of noble ancestors.

Nothing can be more obvious, than that one who is aware of a decided bias in his own person towards mental derangement, ought to shun the chance of extending and perpetuating, without any assignable limit, the ravages of such a calamity. In a case like this, the marriage itself is a transgression of morality. He who inflicts on any one individual the worse than deadly wound of insanity, knows not the numbers to which its venom may be communicated; he poisons a public stream, out of which multitudes may drink; he is the enemy, not of one man, but of mankind.

All observations concur in acknowledging, that there are many circumstances in which children resemble their parents: It is very common to see them resemble one of their parents in countenance; and when there are several children, some will bear the likeness of the father, and others of the mother. Children often possess the make and fashion of the body, peculiar to one, or other, of their parents, together with their gait and voice. The transmission of personal deformities, is equally curious. "I am acquainted" says Dr Haslam "with a person in this town, whose middle and ring

finger are united, and act as one: all the children of this man carry the same defect. A toe nail, particularly twisted, has been traced through three generations, on the same foot and toe. Abundant instances might be adduced on this subject: there is scarcely a family that cannot produce something in confirmation." Is it then surprising that diseases should be hereditary? or at least, that the children of parents suffering under them, should be more susceptible of those particular diseases, than if they had sprung from an untainted stock.