"In person," wrote a contemporary, "William Tuke hardly reached the middle size, but was erect, portly, and of a firm step. He had a noble forehead, an eagle eye, a commanding voice, and his mien was dignified and patriarchal."
He was ninety when he died, and it may be added that Willan made a happy hit when he said, on being consulted by him many years before, "There is a pulse which will beat till ninety."
"Of no distemper, of no blast he died, But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long: Even wondered at, because he dropt no sooner. Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years; Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more, Till like a clock worn out with eating time, The wheels of weary life at last stood still."
French physicians have done justice generously and ungrudgingly to the services rendered by the York reformers in the management of the insane. Parchappe, late Inspector-General of the "Service des Aliénés" in France, wrote: "La Retraite d'York, dont Samuel Tuke publia la description en 1813, fut considérée comme l'école où les aliénistes devaient s'instruire et comme le modèle auquel ils devaient se conformer. La création et l'organisation de cet établissement a eu la plus grande influence sur le développement des bonnes méthodes de traitement et sur le perfectionnement des asiles en Angleterre."[128]
Ferrus, physician to Napoleon I., visited the English asylums in 1826, in order to obtain some useful hints in the management of similar institutions in France, and commends, in a passage which I shall quote, the mild means of coercion resorted to at the Retreat. He speaks of it as the first asylum in England which arrested the attention of foreigners, and proceeds, "Mr. Tuke was a man for whom religion and morality were practical virtues, and in whose eyes neither riches nor poverty, imbecility nor genius, ought in the slightest degree to affect the bonds which unite all men together in common. He thought, with reason, that justice and force ought to be evinced, not by shouts and menaces, but by gentleness of character and calmness of mind, in order that the influence of these qualities might make themselves felt upon all, even when excited by anger, intoxication, and madness. The traditions of this friend of humanity are preserved in the house which he founded. Everything, even down to the patients, is silent and peaceful in this asylum, where some who are not members of the Society of Friends are also admitted. Those admitted, be their religion or social position what they may, whatever even their habits may have been, influenced by the tranquillity of the place and the force of example, find repose in this house, which much more resembles a convent of Trappists than a mad-house; and if one's heart is saddened at the sight of this terrible malady, we experience emotions of pleasure in witnessing all that an ingenious benevolence has been able to devise to cure or alleviate it.... The reputation of this institution is the best established of any in England. We are assured that the number of cures is considerable, and we willingly believe this, because the general management of the house is favourable to the treatment of insanity."