599 Egyptian Harp.-Treatment of the Insane. ratively greater the knowledge of music was in Egypt, when such a harp as now in use was found exactly repre sented on the walls of the tombs of the most ancient Kings, and in the most ancient city of the world. HE disregard Thich have been displayed toand indifference wards certain classes of the destitute and afflicted in England, is disgraceful to a nation which conceives itself to be the most religious, moral, and philanthropic in the world. These national stains and turpitudes have been particularly evinced in the want of all well-regulated charitable institutions for lunatics, and of proper medical treatment for the poor. To its eternal credit Parliament has taken up the one cause; and the gross, brutal, and depraved conduct towards the insane, which was the order of the day in these lazar-houses of human woe, will, octave with the third above; and the other, the octave, a sixth above. The scale of Pythagoras is evidently taken from this model exactly, as the doc trines of Plato echoed the sublime knowledge of Thoth. it is to be hoped, never again be prac tised or permitted without the sum mary punishment and exposure of such wretches as are found capable of so much guilt and cruelty. Some years ago, the writer was requested, by the nephew of a leading surgeon in Edinburgh, to visit a mad-house in the neighbourhood, where human beings were to be found like wild beasts in dens, naked and howling, shut up in darkness, and wallowing in filth. Medical men, whose education and habits ought to have taught them better, were accustomed to look upon these disgust. ing and revolting scenes, in their capa cities as medical officers, as mere matmates were deprived of their reason, ters of course; partly because the in PART 11.] On the Treatment of the Insane. and partly from custom. You took notice of the provisions made for English paupers, in your review of the excellent plan of Mr. Smith of Warwick, for ameliorating the infamous system of farming them out at the very lowest rates to the very lowest charlatans of this country. Dr. Kerrison, in the first volume of the "Transactions of the Associated Apothecaries and Surgeon-Apothecaries of London," has given a regular list of the parishes of more than one county in the West of England, and of the description of doctors, with the amount of their salaries, to whose protection the lives of the poor are committed; and I hesitate not to say, that the criminal who is sentenced to the gallows is in a better situation than the pauper who is compelled to have the attendance and take the worthless drugs of these homicides. The one is killed outright, and the other is poisoned into his grave. In the reign of Louis XVI. there was one hospital only in Paris, the Hotel Dieu, into which thousands were crowded in such excess as to be destroyed by the pestilence which was created by themselves. After the revolution took place, and 80,000 lazy monks and nuns had been swept out of the monasteries and convents, France created the finest philanthropic institutions in the world, by the conversion of the monastic establishments into hospitals, asylums, and maisons de santé. The aged and epileptic find shelter and solace in the huge edifice and shaded avenues of L'Hôpital de la Vieillesse, some thousands of insane in the Bicetre, and 13,000 foundlings in the Hospice de la Maternité. Every department possesses a general hos pital, into which the illegitimate children of the country are received and brought up for the service of the state. There are no bastard-laws, and consequently not the horrid frequency of perjury, and large parochial incumbrances, which result from these laws in England. As all the shame and exposure of being confined in hospitals is incurred in France, there is not the inducement which is held out to women in England, in the shape of affiliations upon gentlemen, with handsome allowances by way of a premium to false-swearing and seduction. Hence bastardy is accounted shameful, and shunned in the French provinces. 599 In England there are towns with populations of 20,000 persons, which barely support a small dispensary, whilst there is scarcely a town in France with half that number of people, in which there is not a large hospital. Also, of this fact I am convinced, that the white-curtained beds and bed-furniture are more comfortable, and the medical attendance more systematic and regular in the hospitals and infirmaries of France, than in our own institutions. I have known respectable men reduced to indigence, glad to take shelter in the French hospitals under pretence of sickness. One species of asylum in France, upon the compensation plan, deserves mention. By paying a small sum annually, persons in precarious professions may ensure, in case of need, apartments and all the comforts and gratifications of genteel life gratuitously. In the public Maisons de santé,-the Maison Royale for example, invalids with insufficient annuities, may have board, lodging, nurses, and medical attendance, with all the comfort of private apartments, and the greater certainty of strict medical discipline, for 21. 8s. per week, which is less than they would pay for board and lodging alone in Paris. A friend of mine told me a short time since, that he had endeavoured to find a place of refuge in some public institution for a decayed artist of merit in this country, and found that impossible in England, which he could have effected immediately in France. These comparisons, be it remembered, are made from personal observation. I have made these statements chiefly for the consideration of those who embark the superfluous resources of charity in fanatical schemes, of which the whole are speculative, and one half chimerical. Two hundred thousand pounds are raised annually in England for these purposes, and spent, in great part, upon the vagabonds of the continent ; and though I have attended Bible and Jew-converting societies, et omne hoc genus, I have yet to learn what we have to show in the shape of a solid and practical return for this immense drain of ready money into foreign countries. An orator at one of these societies lately stated that the people of Huntingdonshire subscribed in the proportion of one farthing in the pound of the gross income of the county. A recent writer calculates the entire income of Great Britain at four thousand millions per annum, out of which an annual subscription of one farthing in the pound would return 4,166,668/. 11s. 8d., a sum sufficient in a few years to furnish the United Kingdoms with the most noble institutions both for instruction and every philanthropic purpose, which would greatly diminish, if not supersede, the poor-rates. Even the 200,000l. per annum now levied, if applied to practical purposes at home, would supply the thirty-six counties of England in thirty-six years with foundations which would amply alleviate the wretchedness under which the country groans, and support them munificently afterwards. One good establishment for the relief of misery, effects more for Christianity than all the Bible and Jew-conversion societies will ever accomplish, even to the end of the world. At a future period I shall probably revert to the subject of insanity, and the treatment of the insane; for, if fanaticism and want of common sense continue to gain ground, there will be abundant occasion to follow Swift's advice, and "Build houses for fools or mad, And show no nation wanted them so bad." Before closing these remarks, I beg to refer your readers to an able pamphlet on this important subject, written by Dr. E. P. Charlesworth, which also contains a plan of the rules and regulations of the Lincoln Lunatic Asylum. This excellent public establishment, when finished, will admit seventy-eight patients, and cost about 20,000l. MEDICUS. Mr. URBAN, Magilligan, Dec. 11. my IN communication to your Ma gazine for December 1827, relative to the ancient and noble family of Macuaghten, the descendants of the gallant Scottish Baron, celebrated in Archdeacon Barber's heroic poem on the Acts of King Robert Bruce, I have, most unintentionally, inflicted a wrong upon the elder branch of that family, which I write this letter to repair, and to which I reasonably expect you will give the same publicity which you innocently did to my mistake. In my former letter I mentioned that John Macnaghten, of Benvarden, who had married Helen, daughter of Francis Stafford, Esq. of Portglenone, in the county of Antrim, had but one son, namely, Edmund, of Beardaville, the father of Edmund Alexander, and of Sir Francis Macnaghten. This, Sir, was a mistake, for I have found, not only by the credible testimony of many gentlemen disinterested in the affair, but from an entry in the family Bible, a Latin one (now at Beardaville), and in writing, marking that of the seventeenth century, that the above-mentioned John and Helen Macnaghten had issue three sons, viz. Bartholomew, Edmund, and Alexander. Bartholo mew, the eldest of these three sons, succeeded to the family estate, and married a daughter of Henry Macma nus, Esq. of Londonderry, by whom he had issue two sons, viz. 1. John, who left no male issue; 2. Bartholomew; besides two daughters, who married into the families of Leslie, in the county of Antrim, and of Workman, in the county of Armagh. The above-mentioned Bartholomew, who carried on the line of the eldest branch of this family, married three times; 1. Elizabeth, daughter of Cary, Esq. of Greencastle, in the county of Donegal, by whom he had no issue; 2. a daughter of Johnson, Esq. in the county of Down, by whom he had one son, Edmund, who died an infant; 3. Charlotte, daughter of Robert Giveen, of Coleraine, Esq. by whom he had issue four sons and three daughters, viz. 1. Edmund Bartholomew M'Naghten, Esq. lately Captain in the Londonderry regiment of militia, and now resident near Clontarf, in the county of Dublin, who married Mary Anne, daughter of Hill Mills, of Bennet's-bridge, in the county of Kildare, Esq.; 2. Henry, who married Frances, daughter of Robert M'Causland, Esq. of Coleraine, by whom he left issue one son, namely, Bartholomew Macnaghten, of Rockspring, in the county of Wexford; 3. Robert Cary Hamil ton Macnaghten, of Mountjoy-square, Esq. an eminent solicitor, who married Mary, daughter of Thoinas Orr, Esq. of Dublin, and has issue by her three sons and two daughters. As this notification is of great consequence to a very worthy family, your giving publicity to it will be an act of justice to them, and one which will confer an obligation on your old and faithful correspondent JOHN GRAHAM. PART II.] Gunpowder Plot-Letter to Lord Monteagle. Mr. URBAN, Dec. 10. 601 documents now arranged by that most me to express and merito tion, as one of the Protestant public, for the valuable communications of J. S. H. as to the actual site where the Gunpowder Plot was intended to explode (now, alas! no longer in existence, through the illdirected demolitions of a modern Committee of Taste), and also as to the supposed writer of the celebrated anonymous Letter to Lord Monteagle. I think I detect in J. S. H. the acute representative of a lover of antiquities, and an Historian of music, Filius dignus Progenitore digno." Since the celebrated cellar, the evidentia rei, is thus put hors du combat, we might in the next age have been gravely assured by some of the Catesby school, that it never existed at all, if so honourable a correspondent had not told us he had been in it, and actually furnished us with its dimensions. With regard to the celebrated Letter, it had long been generally referred (before J. S. H.'s Letter) to Mrs. Habington, the sister of Lord Monteagle, and wife of one of the conspirators, who, aware of what was intended, determined by this means, if possible, to save her brother. Nash, in his History of Worcestershire (published about half a century since), observes, Tradition says she was the person who wrote the letter to her brother, which discovered the gunpowder plot" and he then notices the remarkable fact which must strike every one who ever saw the Letter, namely, that in the phrase the love I bear to you;' the word 'you' has been evidently erased by the writer, and instead of it, is substituted the phrase, 'some of your friends;' leaving the obvious inference that the alteration was in consequence of an afterthought, under which it was feared that the word 'you' might savour too strongly of affection, and perhaps lead to a discovery. · Now that the important Letter in question, to which (under the gracious providence of God) we owe the whole detection of this nefarious scheme of Popish villainy, originated with Mrs. Habington, I have no doubt whatever; but since, through the favour of the Secretary of State, I have been permitted to examine that Letter, and indeed all the accompanying GENT. MAG, Suppl. XCVIII, PART II. D rious officer Mr. Lemon,* I can have no doubt that, however Mrs. Habington may have been the mind which dictated this Letter, it was actually written by the hand of her friend and confidante Mrs. Ann Vaux,† since I discovered a letter preserved among the correspondence, under the hand of the latter, dated 12th May, 1605, the hand-writing of which bears so exact a resemblance to the peculiar hand-writing of the anonymous letter, that it is impossible to compare them together, without observing their identity. This letter of Ann Vaux was among the papers used by Sir Edward Coke (then the Attorney-general) in conducting the prosecution of the traitors, and is indorsed by himself. The connexion that subsisted between the Habington family and Ann Vaux was so well known, that she was at first committed to the Tower, as suspected of having been privy to the Plot; and her confession, when there, bears date the 11th March, 1605. This confession is also indorsed by Coke; and she admits in it, that after she had left White-Webbs (near Enfield), where all the chief conspirators were known to have resorted, came from Mrs. Habington's house at Hinlip, where she had remained about a fortnight before her coming with her to London, and the first night she lay with Mrs. Habington at her lodging in Fetter-lane;' after which follows much matter tending equally to connect her with Catesby, Winter, Tresham, and Garnet. she It further appears, from an important historical document, entitled 'The Manner of the Discovery of the Popish Plot,' published by Mr. Secretary Coventry, and noticed by Miss Aikin in her Memoirs of James I. that Chief *It should be added that the curiosity of the general readers may be nearly equally gratified by reference to a fac-simile engraving of the letter, in the twelfth volume of Archæologia, p. 200.-EDIT. For the benefit of your Heraldic readers it may be noticed that she was the fourth child of the first wife of Wm. Lord Vaux of Harrowden, who was Elizabeth the daughter of John Beaumont, Master of the Rolls. His second wife was Muriel, the daughter of John Tresham, and hence the connec tion of the latter with the other conspirators. Lord Vaux died in 1595, and his will is dated 20th Aug. 35 Eliz, 1593. 602 Gunpowder Plot.-Mrs. Vaux and Mrs. Habington. Justice Popham observed on the trial, as to Ann Vaux, 'Catesby was never from you, as the gentlewoman that kept your house with you confessed ;' and the Earl of Salisbury further says of Ann Vaux, when addressing himself to Catesby, This gentlewoman that seems to speak for you in her confessions, I think would sacrifice herself for you to do you good, and you likewise for her.' It is further remarkable, as appears from the same document, that at the execution of Garnet, which took place on 3d May, 1606, he felt it necessary, in his dying moments, to contradict the public rumour which, from the known intimacy subsisting between himself and Ann Vaux, had not been very scrupulous in its whispers, although perhaps without the slightest foundation in truth. The passage is as follows: Then turning himself from the people to them about him, he made an apology for Mrs. Ann Vaux, saying there is an honourable gentlewoman who hath been much wrong ed in report, for it is suspected and said that I am married to her, or worse, but I protest the contrary; she is a virtuous gentlewoman, and for me a pure virgin.' Now, laying these things together, enough appears from the most incontestable documents of the period, to show that Ann Vaux, the bosom friend of Mrs. Habington, after having been long domiciled with the traitors at White-Webbs, was by her own confession a whole fortnight at Hin lip, the house of Mr. and Mrs. Habington, and the country seat of the conspiracy, from whence she admits that she proceeded with her friend Mrs. Habington to the lodgings of the latter in London; and that, from her peculiar intimacy with her priest Catesby, of which there is abundant evidence in the State papers, in addition to her close intimacy with the Habingtons, she possessed the means of being privy to the intended Plot and its details. Under these circumstances, on whose fidelity could any one desirous of admonishing a brother of his peril, be more likely to rely, than would Mrs. Habington on her intimate associate at bed and board, Mrs. Ann Vaux; and whose hand, if it were (as it must have been) an object to conceal her own, would she have been more likely to mploy, than that of the same indivi dual? When we then come to find the characters of a whole letter under the hand of that female precisely identical with those of the anonymous letter itself, we seem to come as near as historical and documentary evidence will carry us, to the conclusion which I have ventured to adopt, viz. that, if Mrs. Habington dictated the letter in question, her friend and associate Mrs. Vaux supplied her with the means of executing her purpose. May I not here venture to remark, as a Protestant Christiani, that whether Mrs. Habington or her friend, or both, were the instruments, under God, of unintentionally exposing so foul a conspiracy, we have only another example (among an infinite number of others), that God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty,'-a remark equally appli cable to the wonderful discovery of such a nefarious treason,-let who will have been the writer of this remarkable Letter; since nothing can be clearer than that its author never intended to save more than the party ac tually addressed, and it is most remote from his intentions that the whole Plot should have been detected through such a kindness to an individual. I must be further permitted to express my astonishment and regret, that with such full and conclusive evidence of the first commencement, entire progress, and final defeat, of this foul conspiracy, as is now collected at the State Paper Office, in a variety of original documents of the first value and importance, the British public should not be put in possession of printed transcripts of such invaluable papers. If this were done, we should no longer find the champion of the Romish Church have the hardihood to write of these very documents, the result of my researches has been favourable to the Catholic cause; or, should he still continue to hold such language, the damning proofs to the contrary which would then be in every one's hands, would render his opinion perfectly innocuous. CHRISTIANUS PROTESTANS. Mr. URBAN, Dec. 4. Trested themselves in my inquiries |