The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1874-01-29
GLOOMY WITS.
Men who Were Amusing To Others bu
Melancholy 30 Themselves.

unhappy, doctor" said bilious stran-
ger to n celebrated physician. "Can you
give me a cure for melancholy?'
eyes," was the reply; ego and see
the inimitable clown, Grimaldi." Alas,
DOCTOR" was the rcioinder, 81 am Gri-
maldi." DO you know that Joseph JEFF
fcrson suffers unspoakably from dyspep-
sia, and that, pleasant as he is on the
stage, he is compelled to observe the
utmost care of his health? John
Broughan, n wit himself and the
cause of wit in others, suffers terribly
with the gout. The grandfather of
Joseph Jefferson, after whom he was
called, was very much affected by rheu-
matism. And Rufus Choate was doubt
less in poor health when he answered
i'm enemy of Gen. Harrison, who OBJ
iected to the latter because he had been
a man.slayer: "Well, sir, prefer him
to a duelist like Henry Clay !" He
died before his time, in his twenty
ninth year, and seemed to anticipate
his destiny, as he turned to his books
in his great library, and said "These
are the friends that have so far saved
me from the fire of insanity and the
ice of paralysis" George w. Barton,
of Philadelphia, like Choate, in his
sombre moods, spared nobody. Yet
how delightful he could be when he
pleased A memorable passage in one
of his great speeches was spoken when
he was in high health. As | recall the
case, I only recollect that it's main fea-
ture was the death of young woman
with her child unborn. 1t was the old
story of love lightly given and baseIy
betrayed and when the orator repeated
this magnificent stanAa from canto iv
of Byron's "Don Juan, it was photo
graphed in my memory like n picture
never to be cflaced:
She died, but not alone; she held within
A second principle Of life, which might
Have dawnd fair and sinlcss child of sin;
But closed its little being without light.
And went down to the grave unborn, wherein
Blossom and bough lie withcred without blight
IN vain the dews of heaven descend above
The bleeding flower and blasted fruit Of love.
The bitter things of Theodore Edward
Hook were often the result of his own
irritability and i'll health, one of which
may be directly traced to this cause.
"Nobody ever doubted my piety," was
the remark to him of talkative Phar
isee. 81 suppose not, was the retort,
Z" for nobody, who ever heard you,
would doubt your magpiety." With
this dazzling wit, his astounding i'm
provisations, his faculty of punning
and the facility with which he turned
out farces and vaudevilles, he became
the welcome guest III every circle. hp-
pointed to Office at a salary of $40, 600
a year, he was defaulter for 500, 900,
but escaped to resume his position as Il
diner-out. Il comic writer and Joker, and
finally died, broken in health and for
tune, aged ffty-three; to use his own
words, "douc up in mind, purse and
body"
His contemporary humorist, Thomas
Hood, died at forty-soven, after ca
rcer Of varied success. Beset by pecu-
mary troubles, though he wrote much
that was successful, he composed some
of his finest pieces, among them the
renowned "Song of the Shirt, on n
sick bed, from which he never rose.
DIR. Samuel Johnson was another no.
table instance. Afflicted from his birth
with a malignant scrofula which perma-
neutly disfgured his face, and injured
both his sight and hearing, a prodiglous
worker and producer of books and pam
phlets, a profound and witty taIker,
wise, shrcwd, satiric and dogmatic,
many of his choicest triumphs were the
result of hard labor in the most exqui-
site torture of the body and mind.
Perhaps no life and work better illus
trate my general idea than that of Rob
ert Burton, he learned British writer,
born 1876 and died 1G39 10. He was
a confirmed hypochondriac, and his ia,
nous "Anatomy of Melancholy,
from which many modern authors have
borrowed without giving any credit,
was treasure of profound learning,
witty illustrations, and quaint obser'
vations.
Charles Lamb was perhaps the best
specimen of the class I am trying to de
scribe-and died aged fifty-nine. He
was, to use his own picture of another
"a compound of the jew, the gentle
man and the angel" He was the asso
ciate of Wordsworth, Hood, De Quincy
Talfourd, Leigh Hunt, Southey, etc
He was amiable, fantastic, witty, subtle
in his style, and will live in literary his
tory as one of its most delightful char
acters. There was insanity in his fami
ly, and at twenty he was himself sly
weeks in mad house. His sister Mary
was frequently insane, and killed hel
own mother in one of her paroxysms
| always thought Joseph G. Neal, 81
well beloved in Philadelphia for his
quiet manners and easy humor, who
preceded me in the Pennsylvania
and died July 2, 1913, aged forty-one,
greatly resembled Lamb in the grace
full beauty of his writings and the fee
bleness of his frame. One of Lamb''
infirmities was that he stammered. ii,
was sent by his physician to an Englisl
watering place to recover his strength
and was put into the hands of two stou
batlers. As they got him into the
water, he said "My doctor orders
that i am to be dipped eyes, You
honor" was the reply, and down h'
went. As the little man rose in grea
terror he exclaimed 81 mean tina
I am to be Dipped I" Yes, your hon
or" and they doused him again. As h'
came mp he recovered his speech an'
lost his temper, and shouted: Damn
it, my doctor said | was only to b.
dip--ped-once !"
Thomas De Quincy. the Englisi
"opium-eater," died in 1859, aged u,
great age for one whose life was waste'
and great intellect destroyed by hi
lavish surrender to an appetite he coulC
not control. He was not so much
humorist as a dreamer, but some of hi
visions were gorgeous, and much tina
he wrote took high rank in STANDARD
literature and secured him large cir
Gle of admirers.