The celebrated French physician, Pinel, relates the case of a watchmaker who was infatuated with the chimera of Perpetual Motion, and to effect this discovery, he set to work with indefatigable ardour. From unremitting attention to the object of his enthusiasm, coinciding with the influence of revolutionary disturbances, his imagination was greatly heated, his sleep was interrupted, and at length a complete derangement took place. His case was marked by a most whimsical illusion of the imagination: he fancied that he had lost his head upon the scaffold; that it had been thrown promiscuously among the heads of many other victims; that the judges having repented of their cruel sentence, had ordered their heads to be restored to their respective owners, and placed upon their respective shoulders; but that, in consequence of an unhappy mistake, the gentleman who had the management of that business, had placed upon his shoulders the head of one of his unhappy companions. The idea of this whimsical change of his head occupied his thoughts night and day, which determined his friends to send him to an asylum. Nothing could exceed the extravagance of his heated brain: he sung, he cried, or danced incessantly; and as there appeared no propensity to commit acts of violence or disturbance, he was allowed to go about the hospital without control, in order to expend, by evaporation, the effervescence of his spirits. "Look at these teeth!" he cried; "mine were exceedingly handsome; these are rotten and decayed. My mouth was sound and healthy; this is foul and diseased. What difference between this hair and that of my own head!"
The idea of perpetual motion frequently recurred to him in the midst of his wanderings; and he chalked on all the doors or windows as he passed the various designs by which his wondrous piece of mechanism was to be constructed. The method best calculated to cure so whimsical an illusion appeared to be that of encouraging his prosecution of it to satiety. His friends were accordingly requested to send him his tools, with materials to work upon, and other requisites, such as plates of copper and steel, and watch-wheels. His zeal was now redoubled; his whole attention was rivetted upon his favourite pursuit: he forgot his meals, and after about a month's labour our artist began to think he had followed a false route. He broke into a thousand fragments the piece of machinery which he had fabricated with so much toil, and thought, and labour; he then entered upon a new plan, and laboured for another fortnight. The various parts being completed, he brought them together; he fancied that he saw a perfect harmony amongst them. The whole was now finally adjusted—his anxiety was indescribable—motion succeeded; it continued for some time, and he supposed it capable of continuing for ever. He was elevated to the highest pitch of ecstasy and triumph, and ran like lightning into the interior of the hospital, crying out, like another Archimedes, "At length I have solved this famous problem, which has puzzled so many men celebrated for their wisdom and talents!" Grievous to add, he was checked in the midst of his triumph. The wheels stopped! the perpetual motion ceased! His intoxication of joy was succeeded by disappointment and confusion; though to avoid a humiliating and mortifying confession, he declared that he could easily remove the impediment: but, tired of such experimental employment, he determined for the future to devote his attention solely to his business.
There still remained another imaginary impression to be counteracted—that of the exchange of his head, which unceasingly occurred to him. A keen and unanswerable stroke of pleasantry seemed best adapted to correct this fantastic whim. Another convalescent, of a gay and facetious turn, instructed beforehand, adroitly turned the conversation to the subject of the famous miracle of St. Denis, in which it will be recollected that the holy man, after decapitation, walked away with his head under his arm, which he kissed and condoled with for its misfortune. Our mechanician strongly maintained the possibility of the fact, and sought to confirm it by an appeal to his own case. The other set up a laugh, and replied with a tone of the keenest ridicule, "Madman as thou art, how could St. Denis kiss his own head? Was it with his heels?" This equally unexpected and unanswerable retort forcibly struck the maniac. He retired confused amidst the laughter which was provoked at his expense, and never afterwards mentioned the exchange of his head.
The Duchess of Newcastle. From the portrait prefixed to her poems.
"Her beauty's found beyond the skill
Of the best paynter to embrace."
[The Romantic Duchess of Newcastle.]
More than two centuries ago, when Clerkenwell was a sort of court-quarter of the town, its most distinguished residents were William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, and his wife, Margaret Lucas, both of whom are remembered by their literary eccentricities. The Duke, who was a devoted royalist, after his defeat at Marston Moor, retired with his wife to the Continent; and with many privations, owing to pecuniary embarrassments, suffered an exile of eighteen years, chiefly in Antwerp, in a house which belonged to the widow of Rubens. Such was their extremity that they were both forced at one time to pawn their clothes to purchase a dinner. The Duke beguiled his time by writing an eccentric book on horsemanship. During his absence Cromwell's parliament levied upon his estate nearly three-quarters of a million of money. Upon the Restoration, he returned to England, and was created Duke of Newcastle; he then retired to his mansion in Clerkenwell; he died there in 1676, aged eighty-four.
The duchess was a pedantic and voluminous writer, her collected works filling ten printed folios, for she wrote prose and verse in all their varieties. "The whole story," writes Pepys, "of this lady is a romance and all she does is romantic. April 26th, 1667.—Met my Lady Newcastle, with her coach and footman all in velvet, herself, whom I never saw before, as I have heard her often described, for all the town talk is now-a-days of her extravagances, with her velvet cap, her hair about her ears, many black patches because of pimples about her mouth, naked-necked without anything about it, and a black just-au-corps. May 1st 1667.—She was in a black coach, adorned with silver instead of gold, and snow-white curtains, and everything black and white. Stayed at home reading the ridiculous history of my Lord Newcastle, wrote by his wife, which shows her to be a mad, conceited, ridiculous woman, and he an asse to suffer her to write what she writes to him and of him." On the 10th of April, 1667, Charles and his Queen came to Clerkenwell, on a visit to the duchess. On the 18th John Evelyn went to make court to the noble pair, who received him with great kindness. Another time he dined at Newcastle House, and was privileged to sit discoursing with her grace in her bedchamber after dinner. She thus describes to a friend her literary employments:—"You will find my works like infinite nature, that hath neither beginning nor end, and as confused as the chaos, wherein is neither method nor order, but all mixed together, without separation, like light and darkness." "But what gives one," says Walpole, "the best idea of her passion for scribbling, was her seldom revising the copies of her works, lest it should disturb her following conceptions. Her servant John was ordered to lie on a truckle-bed in a closet within her grace's bedchamber; and whenever, at any time, she gave the summons, by calling out 'John,' I conceive poor John was to get up, and commit to writing the offspring of his mistress' thoughts. Her grace's folios were usually enriched with gold, and had her coat-of-arms upon them. Hence, Pope, in the Dunciad, Book I:—