The Sun.
London, England, 1858-07-08 00:00:00

MRS. ROBINSON.

Psychologists have accurately described the men-
tal disease of Mrs.• Robinson, the lady whose con-
duct has recently occupied so much of the attention
of the Divorce Court. The history of witchcraft, as
well as the annals of medicine, contain similar in-
stances. It is riot therefore correct to regard the
case as unique in its medico-legal characteristics,
though it is true that in the aggregate of all its cir-
curnstances it stands without a parallel in judicial
annals.

Mrs. Robinson, in 1844, being then the widow
of a Mr. Dansey, became the wife of Mr. Robin-
son, the petitioner in the case now before the
Divorce Court. After their Marriage they resided
successively at Blackheath, 'Edinburgh, Boulogne,
and Reading. During their residence in Edinburgh
in 1850, they bee me acquainted with Dr. and Mrs.
Line; who then resided in that city, and who are
now at the head of the MoOr-park Hydropath'c
Establishment. In 1857 Mrs. Robinson, had a fever
at Boulogne, during which her husband
tally discovered in her repositoies a MS. diary, in
three considerable volumes, written by her hand.
These v.-limes ate,undeil in elaborated sentimen-
tal effusions regarding Dr. Line,. the •professed
object-of her limitless love. They also contained
glowing and minutely graphic descriptions of her
yearninge kr a reciprocity of affection on his parr,
and (aS tles •linage proceeded) of illicit scenes Be-
tween them. These scenes, .depicted by-the lady
ioi 1± the rot nten-r:9 -colotiiin.; 'which pAssion
could- bestow, were eeseeiated with genuine dates
and real occurreeetis, as to eive t.Le di:.ry the aspect
of a truthful narrative. .14 to i Lie moment Mr.
Rohinsoa had not suspected his wif.'e chastity,
though he seems to have .been well aware of her
aversion to him. Under these circumstances it is
net remerk4ble that tie should at once have eought
te be separai el hone her, and that she should not
he un dig to promote the sewrance of them ttri-
mon'al te. Mr. Robins to instituted a process iti
tae Eccle-zia,stical 0-tart for a divorce a griensa et
thoro. N:, paramour was citA, and the lady
(anxious, apparently, to get rid of allit-xl husband
without the exposure of a public trial) did not de-
fend. The result was a divorce as prayed for.•
When the new Divorce Court was opened Mr.
Robinson presented a petition for divorce a vincvlo
matrimonii. Dr. Lane was mentioned as the para-
mour, and cited as co-respondent. The principal
evidence relied upon was the extraordinary diary
to which we have already referred. Copious extracts
from it, moss elaborately and wantonly descriptive
of guilty interviews, were submitted to the Court.
Various witnesses were brought forward to speak to
collateral circumstances alleged to be corroborative
eif the criminal acts recorded therein. 'With the ex-
ception of the evidence given. by Warren, a late
groom at Moor-park, not even the shadow of proof
was adduced ie support of any one of the written
conft ssions of guilt ; and till witnese'e Et itereenta
were shown by the most conclusive testimony of
others to .be fabrications. Scenes, for example, in
an arbour, which Warren said ho had seen from a
particular place, it was shown by plans, and by the
evidence of an engineer, could not have been 'wit-
ne•sed from that point. The while of this youth's
testimony, so far as it implicated Dr. Lane, was
evidently the clumsy lie of a tutored wimess. The
strongest possible evidence was adduced in proof of
the perfect mutual confidence which existed be-
tween Dr. and Mrs. Lane. Lady Drysdale—Mrs.
Lane's mother—an inmate of her daughter's house
during the whole cf -the alleged intrigues, gave
most effective and touching testimony on this
point.
'Die position in which the rumours of the contents
of Mrs. Robinson's diary placed Dr. Lane was for
a time overwhelming. He is now acquitted, it is
true ; but unfo:tunstely the state of the law does
not admit of so full an absolution, in the face of the
public, as the requirements of justice and iejared
innocence demand. The Court have, after careful
deliberation, frankly announced that they conceive
that justice requires that Dr. Lane shetud be dis-
charged from the suit and rendered competent to
be examined : and they also state that as the law
now -tauds this cannot b-. done. F. wive
iiiiwever,
mentioned by Sir A. C. ckburn Viet in a b ll now be-
fore Parliament, and likely to become law, it is in-
tended to introduce a clause which will enable the
Divorce Court to dismiss a co-respondent and make
him admissible as a wi:nese He also added that
should the law be so alt red the Court would re-
joice to have it in their power te, eneble Dr. Lane
to be examined. In the meautiiiie we are not
violating our usual rule—re Serving an expression
of opinion neon undecided cases in the courts of
law—when. we ay that we concur with the judges
of the Divoic2 Cetut in clTilaing our conviction
that, as regards Mr. and Mrs. Robinson,
Dr. Lane
is an iiit.dlcelt and Will: ed man.
The proof ef Dr. Lene's innocence is also the
proof of Mrs. Robins en's insanity. To draw the
line between the inflamed imsginings of a sane
woman and the delusions of a mituotnanaic mat' not
always be possible. In el etomania, as in every
other form of monoMattia, the bd. 1. ing-scale of cases
which lead from the domains •
of samty.te these of
insanity is so gently graduated as to render it
difficult to say where the dviding hue between the
two ought to b 3 drawn. At the same time no one
can peruse the best observations of the best authors
on this subject without feeling satisfied that Mrs.
Rebiusou's diary can only be explained by believ-
ing that she was an erotomaniac, possessed of
highly imaginative powers ,morbidly excited, of an
immense copiousness in passionate el (pence, and
of an ungovern,ble act ibeit,di
Suzli cases as that of this unhappy lady justify
the distinction which Esquirol draws between the
cerebral and the other grosser forms of the disease.
Esquirol, in 1838, remarked :—"L'ecototnanie . .
est one affection cerebral° chronique, caracterisee
par un amour excessif, tanOt pour un objet ima-
ginaire ; daps cette meladie; i'imagination seule est
lesee; it y a erreur •de Pentendment. C'est une
erection mentale, dans laqttelle. lea idees amou-
reuses sont .fixes et dominantes comme lea idees
religieuses sont fixes et dominantes dans la the-
omanie, on dans la lypemanie religieuse. . . Dana
l'erotomanie I'amour est dans la tete ; les nympho-
manes, sent victimes d'un desordre physique."
This distinction it is very important to bear in
mind. Many physicians have suffered from base-
less imputations, the result of the insane imagin-
ings of monomaniacs of Mrs. Robinson's cla,?;
Groups of cases often occur together. In the
dos of Cervantes erotomania was epidemic, and i u
Don -Quixote we have * victim of the disease
painted to the very life.--/1f0111,171 g Post,