ABSTRACT
When I first read ‘The Idiot Boy,’ I must confess I was alarmed at the term as well as the subject, and suspected that it would not please, but disgust. But when I read on, and found that the author had so finely selected every circumstance that could set off the mother’s feelings and character, in the display of the various passions of joy and anxiety, and suspense and despair, and revived hope and returning joy, through all their changes, I lost sight of the term Idiot, and offered my thanks to the God of Poets for having inspired one of his sons with a new species of poetry, and for having pointed out a subject on which the author has done more to move the human heart to tenderness for the most unfortunate of our species, than has ever been done before. He has not only made his Idiot Boy an object of pity, but even of love. He has done more, for he has restored him to his place among the household gods whom the ancients worshipped.
