The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-11-21

ness in many of his letters, especially those which he wrote to Coleridge in the freedom of close friendship. He says of his sister: q consider her perpetually on the brink of madness" After telling Coleridge of his six weeks of imprison- ment in a madhouse, Lamb said: At some future time, Coleridge. will amuse you by telling you of the peculiar turn that my fancy took. Dream not, Coleridge, of having tasted all the gran deur and wildness of fancy till you have gone mad"
 Byron most certainly had his times of insanity, as had his mother also. The son and mother once quarreled so fercely that each afterwards went to a druggist to ask if the other had been there to purchase poison. At times in his later life Byron was quite irresponsible for his acts.
 I have within reach of where write g. copy of Jerusalem Delivered" by Tasso, whose picture appears opposite the title page. It Is the face of an insare man. For seven years this great poet. who
  Ariosto, was confined in an asylum for the insane The precocity of his genius was amazing. At years old he was famous, and while mere lad ''he was the pet and prodigy of a literary circle of distinguished people in Venice" Yet, he was adjudged lunatio later, and was confined from March, 157s, to July, 16S7, in the madhouse of St. Anna.
 Cowpers insanity is well known; his frequent attempts at self murder. his meloncholia, and the sad end of this great genius are pathetic in the extreme. Southey became an imbecile and while in this condition the light of his genius, as well as the light of life. expired. Not unlike Southeys end was that of him whose songs will be sung for centuries to come, the best known of them being "'Tis the Last Rose of Summer" and Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms
 ment in St. Paul's Cathedral, in London, with this inscription upon it: 'rhe great historical painter, James Barry. Died February, rsoe Aged. oS' Barry died a raving maniac.
 When I was a boy knew an old gentle woman who gave me her brothers DOT trait. Her name was Miss Rosalie Poe. The portrait was that of Edgar Allen Poe I have it near my desk tonight. It is the picture of man bound, Mazeppa- like to A wild steed; the difference being herein: Mazeppa was bound to horse of flesh and blood, while Poe was tied hand and foot to a wild mental creature that bore him with the widest impetu- ositv whether 1t would, with goblins and other strangs beings clutching at him as he was borne on with the switfness of a torrent. Poe's first love was the Helen of his early poems Upon her death the wt,d-evea boy would nightly visit her grave" and when the nights were dreari- ast and coldest and the autumnal winds walled mournfully over the graves, he would finger longest" Later on he be- came like visitant from another world. ..IIe lived in other realms; sometimes in heaven oftener in hell" He walked the s+raets in lonely madness. his sornfully- c,,r,aa lin muttering curses. He counted himself damned. and despair 'wrung his natbetic soul; he had worldwide repu- tatior hut in all the world he had only +wo r,1ends." In my childhood's home used to listen with awe at tho strange things told of him. Was hs genius?