CURIOUS CONCEITS.
While the late Edmund Burke was making preparation for the indictment before the House of Lords, of Warren Hastings, Governor-general of India, he was told that a person who had long resided in the East Indies, but who was then an inmate of Bedlam, could supply him with much useful information. Burke went accordingly to Bedlam, was taken to the cell of the maniac, and received from him, in a long, rational, and well-conducted conversation, the results of much and various knowledge and experience in Indian affairs, and much instruction for the process then intended. On leaving the cell, Burke told the keeper who attended him, that the poor man whom he had just visited, was most iniquitously practised upon; for that he was as much in his senses as man could be. The keeper assured him that there was sufficient warranty and very good cause for his confinement. Burke, with what a man in office once called "Irish impetuosity," known to be one of Burke's characteristics, insisted that it was an infamous affair, threatened to make the matter public, or even bring it before parliament. The keeper then said, "Sir, I should be sorry for you to leave this house under a false impression: before you do so, be pleased to step back to the poor gentleman's cell, and ask him what he had for breakfast." Burke could not refuse compliance with a request so reasonable and easily performed. "Pray, Sir," says he to his Indian counsellor, "be so obliging as to tell me what you had for breakfast." The other, immediately putting on the wild stare of the maniac, cried out, "Hobnails, Sir! It is shameful to think how they treat us! They give us nothing but hobnails!" and went on with a "descant wild" on the horrors of the cookery of Bethlehem Hospital. Burke staid no longer than that his departure might not seem abrupt; and, on the advantage of the first pause in the talk, was glad to make his escape. I was present when Paley was much interested and amused by an account given by one of the company, of a widow lady, who was of entirely sound mind, except that she believed herself made of glass. Given the vitrification, her conduct and discourse were consequent and rational, according to the particulars which Paley drew forth by numerous questions. Canes and parasols were deposited at the door of her drawing-room as at the Louvre or Florentine Gallery, and for the same reason. "You may be hurt by a blow," said she, to one of flesh and blood; "but I should be broken to pieces: and how could I be mended?"—Best's Mems.