ocured his banishment. A city, says he, is an assembly distinguished
into bodies of men, who are in possession of their respective rights
and privileges, cast under proper subordinations, and in all its parts
obedient to the rules of law and equity. He then represents the
government from whence he was banished, at a time when the consul,
senate, and laws had lost their authority, as a commonwealth of
lunatics. For this reason he regards his expulsion from Rome as a man
would being turned out of Bedlam, if the inhabitants of it should drive
him out of their walls as a person unfit for their community. We are
therefore to look upon every man's brain to be touched, however he may
appear in the general conduct of his life, if he has an unjustifiable
singularity in any part of his conversation or behaviour; or if he
swerves from right reason, however common his kind of madness may be,
we shall not excuse him for its being epidemical; it being our present
design to clap up all such as have the marks of madness upon them, who
are now permitted to go about the streets for no other reason but
because they do no mischief in their fits. Abundance of imaginary great
men are put in straw to bring them to a right sense of themselves. And
is it not altogether as reasonable, that an insignificant man, who has
an immoderate opinion of his merits, and a quite different notion of
his own abilities from what the rest of the world entertain, should
have the same care taken of him as a beggar who fancies himself a duke
or a prince? Or why should a man who starves in the midst of plenty be
trusted with himself more than he who fancies he is an emperor in the
midst of poverty? I have several women of quality in my thoughts who
set so exorbitant a value upon themselves that I have often most
heartily pitied them, and wished them for their recovery under the same
discipline with the pewterer's wife. I find by several hints in ancient
authors that when the Romans were in the height of power and luxury
they assigned out of their vast dominions an island called Anticyra as
an habitation for madmen. This was the Bedlam of the Roman empire,
whither all persons who had lost their wits used to resort from all
parts of the world in quest of them. Several of the Roman emperors were
advised to repair to this island: but most of them, instead of
listening to such sober counsels, gave way to their distraction, until
the people knocked them on the head as desp