their friends. I do not mean to say that my mode was in every case more highly thought of than his, as it very unfortunately happens that the gross ignorance which prevails, with regard to the body and its functions, often prevents people from understanding even the most lucid statement. Mr. Wakeman's mysticism here answered every purpose, and saved him the trouble of giving opinions, and did away too with all chance of his committing himself.

The world indeed knows little of the inattention and want of discrimination too often existing amongst medical men. During the first few anxious years in which a man is pushing himself on, he thinks that every case which comes before him merits careful consideration; but when the Rubicon has been passed-when he is secure of a certain circle of patients, and when the care of his reputation is taken out of his hands and placed in that of his supporters-nothing can be more slight than the attention bestowed in ordinary cases. Indeed, habit takes place of professional skill and acumen. Thus I have known Mr. Wakeman order the same physic for a dozen people, slightly varied in appearance, although their maladies had little or no similarity to each other; and it is not too much to assert that an examination of his day-book would show that the first prescription of the day invariably, to a very great extent, governed the rest. At one time he took a fancy to Plummer's pills, and week after week pilulæ Plummeri was certain to appear in every prescription for adult persons; nor was it till one or two people had been salivated that he became conscious that he was prescribing from habit, and not from observation. His usual exclamation on these occasions, as this was not a solitary one, was "God bless me! how curious!"

This difference in our professional views, as a matter of course, led to petty squabbles, spite of all my exertions to accommodate myself. To do so completely was impossible; and to this cause of dissension was soon added others entirely personal to himself. His health had become deranged and his temper irritable; and this irritability he was at no pains to conceal. He grew snappish on occasions when it had an ill grace, and sometimes it gave offence; but as he was the "Old Doctor," few people thought of quarrelling with him: many were, however, made uneasy by it; and where this happened, a wish was expressed, sometimes indirectly and at other times directly, that I should continue the attendance. This weighed sorely upon the old man's temper: he roundly accused me of tampering with his patients, and a period of suspicious jealousy followed exceedingly provoking. Like other old men, he had become wrapped in himself. He had been eminently successful, and this had made him necessarily vain and selfish in his opinions as to his own qualifications and merits; and he could by no means be brought to understand why and wherefore I was, as he termed it, stepping into his shoes. The bickerings and heart-burnings, which were almost perpetual, joined to other causes, made us both anxious for a separation, after I had been with him upwards of two years. It was quite clear to me that we were injuring each other-certainly undesignedly on my part-and that the sooner we parted, the better it would be for us.

When this was effected, I took a house in the same town; and, having saved a little money, commenced living in a respectable style. My connexion with Mr. Wakeman had been of immense service to me it had taught me the way of doing business, which I was now to exercise on my own account. It had also given me confidence in myself, had opened a moderate practice, and had placed me in a very fair position in society: I was not backward at taking advantage of these. It seemed to me that the path to professional reputation was fairly gained, and that it only required to be trodden with steadiness and caution to lead me to independence. An incident, however, occurred to me at this juncture, just when my fortunes seemed most propitious, which nearly overthrew all my schemes, and, had it not been for firmness on my own part, would inevitably have ended in completely blasting my fair fame.

[To be continued.]

SONNET-MARRIED LOVE.

BY P. GASKELL, ESQ.

"Tis married Love that has the purest wings!

That builds a temple of the noblest fame,

Where burn those lights-the best of earthly things—
That shed a lustre on a husband's name !

His wife to him is the one brilliant star

The guiding light that ever in the sky

Directs his faithful feet, and, near or far,
Points to his home, and prompts him there to fly.

In that loved Paradise-he fondly dwells,

Wall'd round by honour, truth, and loyalty!
And there sweet household music ever tells,
That life is one unchanging harmony;

The concord of two souls-each bless'd to find
The answering tones of a congenial mind!

COINCIDENT CRIME

FITZGIBBON AND STANYNOUGHT:

WITH OBSERVATIONS ON THE PLEA OF INSANITY IN CASES OF MURDER

AND SUICIDE.

THE painful interest which has been excited by the melancholy case of a father deliberately and premeditatedly destroying his child, leads us to place before our readers a similar occurrence, but one fraught with still more affecting circumstances; and also some remarks on the common plea of insanity, now so universally brought forward as a softening consideration in cases of suicide and murder. John Fitzgibbon was a native of Ireland, and was a man abundantly endowed with many of the higher and better qualities of humanity. Well educated, and of an enthusiastic and ardent temperament, he seemed fitted to move in society as one of its most estimable members. His heart overflowed with kindness, and he married the woman of his fondest affections, and became a father: the fabric of his mind, whether originally unsound, or whether warped by suffering, after a time gave way, and he indulged in superstitious fancies, till they became settled principles. His wife died; sorrow and privation came upon him, and a gloomy and austere tone of thinking changed the character of the man. He began to shun his fellows, his face expressed anxiety, and all his gestures and actions partook of that restless and vague eagerness which marks shame or guilt. The once-animated companion became the gloomy recluse, and he lived with his child, apparently having no other object which he thought worthy attention. This child was his only one-the sole pledge of a beloved wife, and was of rare beauty. He loved it with more than a father's love, for it had become the idol of his bereaved affections; and he doted upon it with an intensity of tenderness, partly originated, perhaps, in his disturbed imagination. Yet this child so beloved and so tenderly nurtured, in whose existence the father appeared to have garnered up his whole earthly happiness, was coldly and deliberately murdered by him-by him who would have perished in its defence, or undergone any privation to add to its comfort.

One morning a friend entered his house, and was horror-struck at seeing the child extended on the floor: the father was standing over it, covered with blood, and perfectly calm and unmoved. "God of heaven!" exclaimed the visitor," what is this?" Fitzgibbon, in a cheerful voice, came forward, and, welcoming him, pointed to the dead child, and desired him to behold his handywork. The man sunk

down in terror; and, covering his eyes with his hands, wept for the blood of the innocent. "Why weep?" said the father-" why grieve? I do not weep-nay, I am delighted when I gaze on my departed cherub. I knew that I was destined to commit murder, and what fitter victim could I have selected than my own innocent offspring? I gave it life, and I have taken it away. He was sinless and pure as an angel; and how could I leave him in a cold and heartless world, that would have mocked him with my name?"

The dreadful crime had been long premeditated; and he left his blood-stained home without a sigh or a tear for the inhuman deed he had committed. The public has no sympathy with crimes like this; and he was loaded with execrations. The calm did not last long; the feelings of the parent triumphed over the reveries of the monomaniac; and, as memory conjured up his lovely innocent, he suffered the most dreadful tortures of remorse. As he told how the deed was done,--that the loving and trusting child had smiled in his face, and lisped out his name, even when the knife was in its throat, big drops of agony started upon his forehead, and he beat his head against the prison-wall, overcome by contending emotions. Still he maintained that the deed was a necessary one-that he had saved his child from shame and sorrow; and he grieved only that his hand should have been the instrument for its destruction. When the day of trial arrived, he went into court, looking like a living corpse. Remorse and uncontrolled sorrow had weighed him down; and as he replied to the question, "Guilty, or not guilty?" his voice sounded hollow and sepulchral. Of his guilt there was no doubt; but his state of mind might have weighed with his judges, and would probably have saved his life. To him, indeed, existence would have been a curse-an enduring agony. The vision of his murdered child would have been ever before him,-now arrayed in the sunny smiles of happy childhood-then " with face all dabbled o'er with blood;" but as he had committed the deed, so also did he avenge it; for while standing in the dock, he sunk down, and after a few struggles he expired. He had swallowed poison-how procured is not known.

The case of Henry Stanynought is a parallel instance of depraved imagination. The curse of hereditary insanity reigns over his family; but up to the present time he has not exhibited symptoms of deranged intelligence: on the contrary, he has fulfilled all his social duties in the most exemplary manner. Like the unhappy man abovementioned, his affection for his children has been more than usually strong; and, like him also, the dark cloud of superstition settled over his mind after domestic suffering. Early in the summer of the present year, his two children-the murdered boy and a girlwere attacked by scarlet fever in a very severe form. His attention to them was unremitting; and the boy recovered, the girl falling a victim to the disease. Since this period he has become melancholyhas expressed strange opinions at times, but not so remarkably as to attract any particular attention; the best proof of which is, the absence of his wife at Gravesend, and his being left alone to conduct

his business and regulate his household. The boy accompanied his mother; and a few days before the fatal act, Stany nought went to Gravesend, and brought the boy back with him to London-his resolution having been wound up to the commission of the unnatural deed. All his actions indeed now showed his premeditated purpose. His shopman, who usually slept in the house, was desired to pass his nights at a friend's in the neighbourhood; and night after night he prosecuted his scheme of destruction. Twice he endeavoured to destroy himself and the child that slept in his arms, by the fumes of charcoal: these failed from want of sufficient precaution in stopping up the chimney and other vents; then he administered opium, and this also failed; till wound up to frenzied desperation, he affected by violence what he had in vain endeavoured to accomplish by the aid of less horrible, though equally deadly, means. The mind revolts at the contemplation of so foul a father stifling his offspring, in the solitude of night, without exciting cause, and in cold and unimpassioned temper the struggles of the child, for a time, defeating the efforts of the destroyer vainly striving to smother him-the stunning blow, and finally the parent using his own body as an agent to extinguish the life of a long-cherished child! What must have been his emotions, when the deadly struggle was over, and he turned to contemplate the mangled and breathless body of the boy? Did he gather him to his bosom, and exult in the triumph of his depraved imagination, or did he hang over him in a revulsion of feeling, and weep such tears as the crime demanded? No eye nor ear was witness of the horrible scene: the murderer was alone with his victim; and, after a weak and futile attempt at suicide, he rested beside the lifeless body.

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When discovered, the sense of moral guilt divided his mind with the empire of satisfied longing. "O God! what have I done? I've murdered my poor dear boy! How came I to do it!" and similar expressions broke from him, indicative of deep distress. What his sentiments were before the act, is best shown by a letter to his wife, which he had written on the day previous:-" I pause in my last moments to beg of you not to give way to despondency. This is the happiest moment I have ever known: my poor little boy is doomed to suffer all the misery of his father, his grandfather, his great-grandfather, and his great-great-grandfather before him. This has been the great cause of my misery. I never knew what it was to be happy, but have always suffered from desponding misery. It is my own nervousness, beyond what I ever saw, that has destroyed me beyond redemption; and you never knew the hundredth part of my sufferings." A letter to the same purport was addressed to his medical man, both unequivocally proving that he had fully contemplated the crime. Neither of the letters exhibit any trace of aberra tion or excited feeling: they are written in his usual way; and none of his actions since the event have been marked by infirmity of purpose, or have indicated a diseased mind: on the contrary, they have been of a nature to show that he fully appreciates his situation, and is perfectly conscious of the enormity of his offence. His conduct