At some religious ceremony at which he was to officiate in the country, a young curate who attended him grew very nervous as to their being late. "My good young friend," said the archbishop, "I can only say to you what the criminal going to be hanged said to those around, who were hurrying him, 'Let us take our time, they can't begin without us.'"—(Yorick Junior.—Notes and Queries. Third Series.)
The following charade, said to be one of the last by Dr. Whatley, has puzzled many wise heads:—
"Man cannot live without my first,
By day and night it's used;
My second is by all accursed,
By day and night abused.
My whole is never seen by day,
And never used by night;
Is dear to friends when far away,
But hated when in sight."
A Correspondent of Notes and Queries suggests the following solution:—
"Ignis, or fire, all men will own
Essential to the life of man;
Fatuus, a fool, has been, 'tis known,
Cursed and abused since time began.
Some Ignis Fatuus, Will-o'-wisp.
Not seen by day, nor used by night,
Men love, and for their phantom list,
When 'tis unseen, but hate its sight."
[Literary Madmen.]
"Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And their partitions do their bounds divide."—Dryden.
This bold assertion has long since been pronounced incorrect. Nevertheless, the barrier between genius and madness has not been traced. Eccentricity is often mistaken for craziness; and the entire subject is beset with nice points and shades of controversy. In 1860 appeared Octave Delepierre's Histoire Littéraire des Fous, upon the soundness of which critics are divided in opinion. The following sketch of its contents, however, shows the work to be full of interest.
A history of literary madmen is yet to be written—whether it be a history of authors who have gone mad, or of persons who, being mad, have turned authors. It is singular to notice what relief madmen find in literary composition; so much so, that it has been employed as a method of cure in more than one of our lunatic asylums. At the Crichton Royal Institution, Dumfriesshire, a little journal, entitled the New Moon, was published every month, the contents being contributed, set up, and printed by the inmates in their lucid moments. Occasionally there was a little incoherence—a little roughness; but, as a whole, the New Moon would bear comparison with many other amateur periodicals. Here are two stanzas written by a man tortured by long sleeplessness, whom private misfortunes had driven mad:—