Through the Ivory Gates. By William W. Ireland, M.D. (Bell
and Bradfute, Edinburgh.)—We do not quite see the unity of design which the author claims for these " Studies in Psychology and History." "All the characters described in the present work," writes Dr. Ireland, "in my opinion, suffered from mental derangement." That may be so ; nor when we find Emanuel Swedenborg and William Blake treated of at length do we object. These two men certainly had much in common. They were both very different from the ordinary type of lunatic. Many people, and people of high intelligence, too, have declared their conviction that Swedenborg was not a lunatic at all. Few would assert the same of Blake; but Blake had more of the "great wit" than of the madman in him. But what connection is there between these remarkable men and King Louis of Bavaria, whose madness was only made noticeable because he was a King, or C. Guiteau, the assassin of President Garfield, a commonplace criminal. A more interesting paper is that on Louis Riel. There is a curious account, too, of Gabriel Malagrida, an ex-Jesuit, who was strangled and burned for heresy at Lisbon in 1761. Some of the things for which he suffered are now "pious opinions" of not a few members of his Church.
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