the order. "Then," said Mr. Abbott kindly,
"you will see your case is not being neglected."

The following précis, though imperfect, will
give some idea of the correspondence:

1. The Board wrote to Thomas Hardie, letting
him know the result of the Special Commission,
and requesting him to discharge his nephew.

Thomas quaked. Richard smiled, and advised
Thomas to take no notice. By this a week was
gained to Injustice, and lost to Justice.

2. The Board pointed out Thomas Hardie's
inadvertence in not answering No. 1; enclosed
copy of it, and pressed for a reply.

Thomas quaked, Richard smiled.

3. Thomas Hardie to the Board. From what
he had heard, it would be premature to discharge
Alfred. Should prefer to wait a month or two.

4. Alfred to Board warning them against this
proposal. To postpone justice was to refuse
justice, certainly for a time, probably for ever.

5. The Board to Thomas Hardie, suggesting
that if not released immediately he ought to have
a trial—i.e. be allowed to go into the world with
a keeper.

G. Alfred to the Board begging that Dr.
Sampson, an honest independent physician, might
be allowed to visit him and report to them.

7. The Board to Alfred declining this for the
present as unadvisable, they being in corre
spondence with the person who had signed the
order—with a view to his liberation.

8. T. Hardie to the Board shuffling, and re
questing time to make further inquiries.

9. The Board suggesting there should be some
reasonable limit to delay.

10. T. Hardie asking for a month to see about it.

11. The Board suggesting a week.

12. Alfred Hardie asking permission to be
visited by a solicitor with a view to protection
of his liberty and property.

13. The Board declining this, pending their cor
respondence with other parties; but asking him
for the names and addresses of all his trustees.

14. Thomas Hardie informing the Board he
had now learned Alfred had threatened to kill
his father as soon as ever he should get out, and
leaving the Board to discharge him on their own
responsibility if they chose after this warning:
but declining peremptorily to do so himself.

15, 16, 17. The Board, by advice of Mr.
Abbott, to Alfred's trustees, warning them
against any alienation of Alfred's money, under
the notion that he was legally a lunatic; and say
ing that a public Inquiry appeared inevitable,
owing to Mr. T. Hardie's unwillingness to enter
into their views.

18. To Alfred, inquiring whether he wished to
encounter the expense of Chancery proceedings
to establish his sanity?

19. Alfred to the Board, imploring them to use
their powers and discharge him without further
delay, and assuring them he meditated no violence
on his liberation, but should proceed against all
parties under legal advice.

20. The Board to T. Hardie, warning him that
he must in future pay Alfred's maintenance in
Asylum out of his own pocket, and pressing him
either to discharge the young man, or else to
apply to the Lord Chancellor for a Commission
de Lunatico Inquirendo, and enclosing copy of
a letter from Wycherley saying the patient was
harmless.

21. T. Hardie respectfully declining to do
either, but reminding the Commissioners that
the matter could be thrown into Chancery with
out his consent, only the expense, which would
be tremendous, would fall on the lunatic's estate;
which might hereafter be regretted by the party
himself. He concluded by promising to come to
town and visit Alfred with his family physician,
and write further in a week.

Having thus thrown dust in the eyes of the
Board, Thomas Hardie and Richard consulted
with a notoriously unscrupulous madhouse
keeper in the suburbs of London, and effected a
masterstroke; whereof anon.

The correspondence had already occupied three
months, and kept Alfred in a fever of the mind;
of all the maddening things with which he had
been harassed by the pretended curers of In
sanity, this tried him hardest. To see a dozen
honest gentlemen wishing to do justice, able
to do justice by one manly stroke of the pen,
yet forego their vantage-ground, and descend to
coax an able rogue to do their duty and undo his
own interest and rascality! To see a strong
cause turned into a weak one by the timidity of
champions clad by law in complete steel; and a
rotten cause, against which Law and Power, as
well as Truth, Justice, and Common Sense, had
now declared, turned into a strong one by the
pluck and cunning of his one unarmed enemy!
The ancients feigned that the ingenious gods
tortured Tantalus in hell by ever-present thirst,
and water flowing to just the outside of his lips.
A Briton can thirst for liberty as hard as Tan
talus or hunted deer can thirst for cooling springs:
and this soul-gnawing correspondence brought
liberty, and citizenhood, and love, and happiness,
to the lips of Alfred's burning, pining, aching
heart, again, and again, and again; then carried
them away from him in mockery. Oh the sick
ening anguish of Hope deferred, and deferred:

The Hell it is in suing long to bide.

But indeed his hopes began to sicken for good
when he found that the Board would not allow
any honest independent physician to visit him,
or any solicitor to see him. At first, indeed,
they refused it because Mr. Thomas Hardie was
going to let him out: but when T. Hardie would
not move at their request, then, on a fresh appli
cation, they refused it, giving as their reason that
they had already refused it. Yet in so keen a
battle he would not throw away a chance: so he
determined to win Dr. Wycherley altogether by
book or by crook, and get a certificate of sanity
from him. Now a single white lie, he knew, would
do the trick. He had only to say that Hamlet was
mad. And "Hamlet was mad" is easily said.