markets of Italy, hundreds after hundreds of small, ill-proportioned, inferior heads; while I have seen also, but much more rarely, the large broad head, with fine anterior lobe, full coronal region, and dark bilious and nervous temperament, which I had been accustomed, before visiting the country, to regard as the proper Italian type. I now see that it forms a small proportion only of the aggregate; and I begin to perceive in the heterogeneous combinations of the cerebral organs in this people, obstacles to their conglomerating into one nation, which have not been taken into consideration by the ordinary speculators on their destiny. I repeat, however, that my observations are still too limited to merit implicit reliance.

In Milan I had the pleasure of forming personally the acquaintance of Dr Pietro Molossi, known to the readers of your Journal through his writings on the science. He is still in middle life and in good health, and is in the employment of the Austrian Government in his medical capacity at Milan. He is preparing for the press the second part of his work on Phrenology. He reads the Edinburgh and Heidelberg Phrenological Journals, is convinced of the foundation of animal magnetism in nature, has tried magnetism, but has never obtained manifestations of the cerebral organs during the magnetic sleep. He hopes to visit Edinburgh within a few years. In Milan I became acquainted also with Count Neipperg, a warm and able friend of Phrenology, whose name is known to you through Dr Castle's "Corso di Lezioni sulla Frenologia,' printed at Milan in 1841, and dedicated to Dr Molossi. Count Neipperg is still young, but he is an influential man. He is in the military employment of the Austrian Government in Milan; his father is the second husband of Maria Louisa, Napoleon's widow, now Grand Duchess of Parma; and his brother is married to a daughter of the King of Würtemberg. I mention these particulars (according to the information given to me by a friend of the Count), because they indicate that Phrenology is no longer regarded with distrust by the Austrian Government. In point of fact, Dr Castle's lectures were delivered in the salon of Count Neipperg, and were attended by many of the most distinguished persons in Milan. Their subsequent publication and dedication to Dr Molossi, and the employment of this gentleman himself, after he had published on Phrenology, by the Government, all shew that in the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, advocacy of this science forms no obstacle to the advancement of its disciples to situations of confidence and honour. Count Neipperg informed me that Dr Castle (who is an American, and holds a degree of M.D. from the

* See Phrenological Journal, vol. xiv. p. 237.

University of New York), during his residence in Milan, had examined the heads, and written descriptions of the natural characters, of a considerable number of individuals of both sexes, some of them of distinguished talents, and others in high rank; and with extraordinary success. He read to me several of these written descriptions; and in point of deep analysis and comprehensive unfolding of the most delicate and remote effects of the combinations of the different organs, they possess the highest merit. Dr Castle had left Milan, and was in Stutt gardt at the time of my interview with Count Neipperg, so that I had not the pleasure of seeing him, nor did I see any of the individuals whom he had described. I had no means, therefore, of judging of the accuracy of his observations; but I urged on the Count the advantage of publishing several of the manuscripts as examples of profound analysis, and close deduction; and as he certified that the characters were equally true to nature (of which he could judge from intimate knowledge of the individuals), as they were ably and scientifically deduced from phrenological principles, I trust that this will be done, either in your pages or in those of the German Phrenological Journal.

The statuary and paintings of Italy present a field of study of the highest interest to the phrenologist, and my next letter will be devoted to this subject. At present I limit myself to remarking, that I have examined with attention the collection of ancient busts of the Roman emperors, and of other distinguished Romans, now preserved in the galleries of Florence and Rome, with a view to form an estimate of their value as records of the talents and dispositions of the men; but have been grievously disappointed. Mr Charles Maclaren, in his "Notes on France and Italy," had previously remarked that, "of some of the great Greek and Roman sages and heroes, there are four or five editions here in marble, and I was mortified to find that the effect of this multiplicity of portraits was to unsettle my ideas of physiognomies which I was anxious to remember, and to shake my faith in the fidelity of likenesses taken by the ancient sculptors. There (in the Museum in the Capitol) or elsewhere in Rome, I have seen heads of Cicero which had very little resemblance to each other. It is the same with certain busts, bearing the names of Julius Caesar, Brutus, Plato, &c. There is much more uniformity in the case of some of the emperors, such as Nero and Caligula, whose faces nobody cares to know." My own observations coincide pretty closely with those of Mr Maclaren; only it appears to me, that, in most of the busts, the features of the face, and such portions of the forehead as were not covered by the hair, had been modelled from nature; but few of the busts are of the

size of life, the greater number being colossal. The other parts of the head seem to have been formed without due attention to individual characteristics. They cannot be said to have been all modelled from the same lay-figure; for there are great differences in the forms of the heads, but these differences are not natural, and are not characteristic of any individual qualities. The heads seem to have been modelled at hap-hazard, according to the artist's fancy, with this exception, that a common type may be recognised in many of them. They are almost all very broad above the ears, and the coronal region is shallow and defective. This is so prevalent, that it must have been the general form, and it corresponds with the general characters of the men; but that it is not copied faithfully from each individual is obvious, because the same breadth in the lower, and occasionally the same deficiency in the coronal region, appear in the best as in the worst of the Roman emperors. Among the exceptions to this general type are two busts in the Royal Gallery at Florence, said to be of Julius Cæsar. One is in bronze, of which the Phrenological Society in Edinburgh has a cast, presented by the late Lord Douglas Hallyburton; the other is in marble. Both seem to have been carefully modelled, but unfortunately the two differ so widely in the forms of the head and of the features, that I cannot believe them to be likenesses of the same man. There are three busts of Trajan in the same gallery, each differing so much from the others in the form of the head, although the features bear some resemblance, that all confidence in them as historical records is destroyed. All the busts of Nero represent him with an enormous breadth over the ears, and deficient forehead, but they differ in the other regions of the head. I ascribe these defects to the Roman sculptors not having advanced far enough to discover the importance of following Nature even in her minutest differences of form. Canova was equally blind to this rule. His heads are not faithful portraits beyond the face and forehead, and, in consequence of this defect, have little historical value. Our countryman Lawrence Macdonald estimates highly the value of Phrenology in this particular, and follows nature in his busts with a just fidelity. The Greek sculptors also were far more attentive to individual character than the Roman, as I shall take occasion to notice in my next letter. In the Gallery at Florence there is a collection of busts of the most distinguished men of the Medici family; but here also, between wigs, and caps, and bushy locks, colossal dimensions, and careless modelling, almost all historical evidence of dispositions is destroyed. I am, &c.

GEORGE COMBE.

II. CASES AND FACTS.

I. Three Cases of Homicidal Insanity.

1. Case communicated by Dr OTTO, Professor of Forensic Medicine in the University of Copenhagen.-On the 21st of March 1843, K. J., a country woman in Zealand, 42 years old, who of late had manifested some confusion of mind, called her husband in to dinner. On entering, he immediately perceived blood on her fingers, and asked her whence it came. She answered quietly, that she did not know; but on his repeating the question, she pointed to the cradle in which their youngest child (a girl one year old) used to sleep, and said

The

You may look there." The child was then found dead from having been cut in the throat with a razor, which the mother had found in a drawer. The husband and the other children complaining and reproaching her, she behaved very oddly, saying that she did not know what was the matter; but, on the servant maid charging her with the crime, she replied, "Yes! and what then? I have cut the throat of Dorothea!" husband now questioning her what had actuated her to take the razor and kill the child, she answered, "She did not know; it occurred to her she was to do it." In the prison to which she was brought, she tried the next day to hang herself with a handkerchief, but was taken down in time, and restored to consciousness. Thenceforward she was alternately quiet and confused, until the middle of May, when she recovered her reason, but without being able to know or remember what she had done, when not informed of it.

She had, when 12 years old, by a fall down a garret stair, hurt her head and chest considerably; and, although cured, was three months after attacked by cramps and mental derangement, which, however, likewise yielded to medical treatment. She subsequently enjoyed several years unbroken health, manifesting neither perturbation of mind nor any other disease; and gave birth to four children, to whom she always was a careful and loving mother. In June 1842, a fire consumed their house, and deprived them of all their furniture. This depressed her spirits very much; but, although melancholy, she was not at all deranged in her intellect, and attended carefully to her domestic duties. From January 1843 she had always sleepless nights, talked confusedly, and was uncommonly passionate towards her husband and children, but only in the forenoon, until 1 o'clock; the rest of the day she was quite reasonable and gentle. In such a fit as the above-mentioned,

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she twice tried to kill the youngest child-the first time with a knife, and the next with a cord round her neck; but was both times prevented from doing it. Six weeks before she succeeded in the murder, her state was altered in such a manner, that she slept well at night, but began in the morning to talk incoherently, and continued so the whole day, but in other respects was more quiet. The last ten days, however, she had been much better. Her physician had given her some medicine, and declared her so well that she did not require his farther attendance. The day on which she committed the murder she rose at 7 o'clock, but as she appeared a little confused in mind, she was prevailed upon by her husband again to go to bed. The child had likewise as early been. taken up from the cradle, but, as it became sleepy, the maid would, as usual, lay it into the bed with the mother; who, however, remarked that it was better to put the child into the cradle. This was done, and at 10 o'clock the mother rose, apparently not suffering from any mental derangement, and occupied herself with mending the clothes of the children. At 12 o'clock she took a razor and cut the throat of the child. It is clear that, in this criminal case, there could be no question about imputability; and the Danish College of Health, before which it was laid, declared, of course, the murder to be an act of insanity. But can any other existing philosophy of mind explain it but the phrenological? And will every other murder in consequence of a morbidly excited Destructiveness, be seen in its true light by any other but by a phrenologist?

She

2. Case reported by Dr Amariah Brigham, Medical Superintendent of the Retreat for the Insane at Hartford, Connecticut. -A case of insanity, once under my care, was preceded by a homicidal propensity, and its bearing is so direct upon the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity, that I will briefly relate it. It was that of a lady, the mother of three children, one of whom she suddenly killed by repeated wounds with a hatchet. had not been considered insane previously, though she had for some time been unwell, and low spirited. Soon after the act, she endeavoured to kill herself, and was brought to the Retreat a decided and wretched maniac. For several weeks, she remained without much change, rather stupid, as if she had no recollection of the past. After this, her bodily health began to improve, when suddenly the memory of what she had done seemed to return, and the agony she was then in for a few hours, until her feelings were overcome by opium, was indescribable, and most painful to witness. She, however, recovered, after various changes and symptoms, among the most VOL. XVII.-N. S. No. XXV.-JAN. 1844.

C