The Sun.
London, England, 1845-11-14 00:00:00

SOIREE IN THE BELFAST DIS-

TRICT LUNATIC ASYLUM.
(From the Northern Whig.)
On Thursday evening last the annual soirée was given to
the patients in the Lunatic Asylum, by Dr. Stewart, whose
humane and effective system of management entitles him to
all praise. On entering the apartments where the entertain-
ment was given, and which were tastefully ornamented with
evergreens, and brilliantly lit, we were greatly struck with
the appearance which their inmates presented. There was
none of that violent or outrageous conduct which we are apt
to associate with our ideas of madness—on the contrary,
there was among all the patients, with but a single excep-
tion, a prevailing quietness of demeanour; and, but for the
occasional wildness of their glance, and the incoherency of
their expressions and conversation, one would never ima-
gine, for a moment, that they were other than sane men
and women.

In one of the apartments appropriated to their use, on the
evening in question, at the end of which there was a plat-
form erected for the visitors, a considerable portion of whom
were ladies, there was a pianoforte and a violin; the latter
instrument was played, in an astonishingly correct and ani-
mated manner, by one of the patients, while a number of
others, male and female, joined in one of the most extraor-
dinary dances it was ever our lot to witness. It would be
impossible to conceive anything more fantastic or outre than
their movements. One girl, with a pair of shoulders like
a Hercules, performed a most remarkable summersault,
to the infinite amusement of the whole company. They all
seemed to enjoy the exercise, and kept up the dance
with great spirit for a considerable time, relieving each
other by turns.
In passing through the room adjoining that in which the
dancing was going on, we fell into conversation with ono of
the patients, a keen-eye, middle-aged man, who was pos-
sessed with a wonderful idea of his own dignity and majestic
pretensions—" Do you know," said he, " what's all this
about ?—I cannot, for the life of me, conceive what all those
ladies and gentlemen are doing in there; but perhaps they're
fond of amusement, and they have come to see the dancing—
that's just it. Maybe they are the Royal Family—ah ! if
they are, I'll speak to them. Do you know what it is—l
have been shamefully treated—l have been made a prisoner
of wrongfully, by men who compassed my defeat, knowing,
that if they thus secured me, my claims to the throne would
be forgotten and neglected. lam heir not only to the
throne of England, but to the thrones of France and Scot-
land. If I have said anything offensive to you, I hope you
will forgive me; but you know it is an exciting subject to
converse upon—to be heir, as I am, to the thrones of Eng-
land, Scotland, and France, is a matter of some importance
both to myself and the nation at large ; and I certainly do
think, that if the public considered my case with the atten-
tion and respect due to such a proceeding of the State as
has involved me in ruin, and by which, as you see, I have
been made a prisoner, that immediate steps would be taken
by the Lord Chancellor, if he have any honesty in his soul,
to restore me to that position in society which I once oc-
cupied. Ah ! here comes the Queen "
Just at this moment a very beautiful girl, leaning on the
arm of a gentleman, approached.
"Ah, your Majesty!" cried the patient, " won't I have
your Majesty's gracious pardon ? Are not you the Queen
of England P
" Not exactly," replied the lady.
" Oh ! well, then, if you're not the Queen of England, you
must be the Queen of Spain. You laugh—there con be no
doubt of it—you are the Queen of the British Isles—your
Majesty, I kneel before you (kneeling down), I again entreat
your Majesty's smiles—l hope you won't forget the'pre-
ferment though. The Prime Minister, as your Majesty
very well knows, is under deep obligations to me : and I
don't think I would be expecting too much, if I asked you
to make me an Admiral. Such an appointment lam fully
entitled to ; it would only be commensurate with the ser-
vices I have done to the State, leaving my pretensions to the
throne out of the question altogether. And your Majesty,
perhaps you may not be aware of the fact, but I can inform
you, that I have fought and bled in the cause of truth, and
in support of those principles which placed your Majesty,
and your royal ancestors, upon the throne of these realms.
Why, I should like to know, am I to be kept here—it is a
very wearying kind of life, and my faithful subjects—God
knows what is to become f them in my absence! The Le-
gislature are imperatively called upon to investigate the mat-
ter, and that with the slightest possible delay."
At this particular place, the heir to the throne became very
incoherent ; and, his attention having been caught by some
object, he rambled away from the group.
In a retired corner of the dancing-room, surrounded by a
number of the visitors, was an intelligent-looking man, who
had been for some time an inmate of the Asylum, reciting
an extraordinary piece of composition. This man was a
poet, and the verses were his own. He dwelt upon those
passages which he himself admired, with great emphasis;
and was evidently highly gratified with the applause of his
auditory.
Opposite the poet, in another corner of the room, was a
patient, who, we were informed, had been a graduate in
Trinity College, Dublin. He wasa man of quiet demeanour,
and, judging from his conversation, which was plentifully
interlarded with quotations from the Greek and Latin Fa-
thers, a scholar of no mean pretensions. He gave some long
passages from the " First Book of the .Eneid," but could
not commence with the words of the poet, till he had gone
over the four lines of doubtful parentage which precede that
exquisite production. He afterwards recited some of the
most striking passages from IHomer's Iliad," dwelling, with
rapt and solemn air, upon the sonorous and grand sounding
syllables of the magnificent Greek. He said he delighted
in the Greek tragedies above all other writings—there were a
loftiness of sentiment, and a dignity to be found in them,
for which, in other compositions, we looked in vain. The
Latin playwright Teremce was the only one who at all ap-
proached those inimitable writers in spirit, and grandeur of
conception.
Leaving the classical enthusiast, we came upon an old
Armagh choir man, who was seated at the piano, thundering
away, with the most exemplary perseverance, at " God save
the Queen." He afterwards played some snatches from the
antique Cathedral services of the seventeenth century ; and
a minor chant of Dr. Woodward's. He had quite the organ
style and touch, and had, evidently, been accustomed to that
instrument. It seemed to us, that he imagined he was
seated at the organ, from the peculiar way in which he
shifted, in the fingering, and the sustaining effect he gave
the music, by his manner of grasping the chords. One of
the visitors afterwards played for him the College Chant, and
Dr. Battishill's in E. "Ah," said the patient to him, when
he had done, "you're not so good a player new as when you
were organist of St. Patrick's!'
The dancing and amusements were kept up till ten o'clock,

the utmost harmony_ and good humour Prevailing among the

patients ; and the visitors shortly afterwards depaited, pleased
with, and astonished at, the entertainment they had been

spectators of.
We cannot conclude without expressing our warm admi-
ration of the benevolent and excellent system which has been
adopted by Dr. Stewart towards his patients, with such signal
success. The harshness and cruelty of the old mode of treat-
ment are, in this valuable institution, entirely. done away
with ; and the freedom from personal restraint enjoyed by the
patients, so far from being an evil, has been attended by the
most beneficial results.
The following composition was taken down, from the dic-
tation of the poet mentioned in the foregoing sketch, and
sung by him before several of the faculty, who were present
on the occasion :

SONG.
THE VILLAGE BARBER TURNED QUACK DOCTOR.
A village barber born and bred,
(I trimmed them in a minufe),
Made something of t'outside the head,
Though there was nothing in it;
I learned to bleed, and stumps to draw;
But ne'er lock jawed the Proctor;
So up to London went, 0 la!
And set up for a Doctor !
SPOKEN—But I couldn't forget my old trade of periwig-
making, so I depended all upon puff—cured patients that I
never saw, and killed all that I did see; so, to prevent ac-
cidents, I invented a new medicine, that would neither kill
nor cure—got a patent for it—cured their purses of a ple-
thora, and my own of a galloping consumption I But the
main chance was my maxim and motto, so I drove along in
the capacity of a
Quack, quack, fol-de-rol diddle-lal-de-daddi 0 !
Quack, quack, &c.
My patient knew as well as I ;
And, so the way I nicked them,
Was let them live or let them die,
I'd never contradict them;
Whate'er they fancied, that I tried— '
If cured, my skill was shown, Sir ;
But if, as oft it proved, they died,
The fault was all their own, Sir,

SPOKEN. —Patient—Doctor, I'm very ill. Doctor—Let me
feel your pulse—put out your tongue; ah I your complaint's
a polyphosbia, as we say—vulgarly, a diascordium of the
biliary duct. Patient—Duck, Doctor? I believe it was a
wild duck did me all the mischief. Doctor—Well, well;
we'll soon tame the wild duck—you shall have a narcotic, a
cathartic, a sporific, and a sudorific. Patient—Soap and
suds, Doctor? I'll never be able to swallow them. Doctor—
Well, then, you shall have an anodyne. Patient-0 yes ; I
should like to dine—pray, Doctor, what may I eat? Doctor
—Well, what do you like best? Patient—l likes goose and
gravy soup, Sir. Doctor—have them, by all means—no-
thing's so good for the bile as goose and gravy soup; but
avoid a wild duck as you would a
Quack, quack, fol-de-rol, &c.
At last I published, through the town,
My patent, simple sirrup,
My name got up, and then went down,
And made a pretty stir-up.
I said, in all complaints 'twas sure
The worst of ills to smother,
And so it was, for it would cure
One just as well as t'other.

SroKEN.—Oh, it was a charming composition : sugar,
vinegar, mustard, and magnesia—sweet, sour, hot, and cold.
If that was not calculated for all cures, I don't know what
was. However, the medicine took whilst they took the me-
dicine ; and I took the money, so somebody was the better
for it. The patent proved its utility, and the stamp duty
service to the State. The physicians fretted, the surgeons
were in a stew, and the apothecaries in a big passion. But a
fig for the faculty, say I ; while in the stream of popularity,
I drove on a swimming trade, which is very natural for Ducks
that swim over the water !