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article which goes under the name of Argenteria in the hapless lodgers' inventory. Sora Teta had developed into a somewhat large woman in these years. Her full Roman shoulders, always of ample dimensions, were now fuller than ever, and nothing was wanting to make her a personification of the national type of woman, but the white national kerchief folded over her breast, which would have given a homely dignity and stateliness to the famous poise of that bold Roman head. But Sora Teta was a woman of pretensions, and scorned (except at carnival) the dress of the Contadini. So she wore a gown like other people, and looked only a large woman, stout and strong, and not without a certain swarthy and dark-complexioned comeliness. She was counting out her napkins and tablecloths, which, like herself, were rather dark complexioned, when the objectionable maid admitted Mariuccia. There were no sounds in the house but the fretful bark of a little dog, and Teta's own firm but heavy footstep-no children: a little Teta or Cenci in those silent passages might perhaps have made the Sora Costini more placable towards the unfortunate maid.

Mariuccia came in somewhat discomfited and despondent. Her hands fell listlessly over her white apron ; her step was so much less assured and confident than usual, that the Sora Teta expected only a feeble English waiting-maid from her tenants on the first floor instead of the peasant woman, whose foot should have sounded so much different. Mariuccia dropped sadly upon the first seat that happened to be near her. "Ah, Teta, I have told him," she exclaimed, with a great sigh. Though there was no preface to connect this abrupt statement with any person in particular, Teta, with all her old sharpness, and with wits quickened by a world of gossip and much encounter with life, stopping short in her occupation, gazed at Mariuccia for a moment in surprise, and then leaped at the truth.

"You have told him!" she cried, with mingled pique and admiration"you, Mariuccia! and I myself had not the courage! Well, that is news,

amica mia. You have told himbenissimo! and what did he say?"

"Ah, Teta, if I had but thought of consulting with you first," said poor Mariuccia; "you were always so sensible! but, you see, I have been living all by myself at Rocca, thinking it over, and thinking it over. And one would come and say, 'Mariuccia mia, is not that boy Chichino of yours a noble born?" and another would whisper, 'You were at the Agostini palace, Mariuccia, that night;' and another, 'He is no villano, yonder Francisco-he has the air of a prince;' and even Gigi himself, though he does not trouble his brains too much, is always talking when he comes from Rome, saying, 'I remember very well, my mother, waiting for you with the donkey by the lake-side yonder at Genzaro the night that little Chichino came.' Madonna Santissima! one and another of themthey put me out of my head. I could get no rest with myself till I came to the child: for I said, 'Why should every one know or guess who he is, save himself?""

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Oh, it was very well and very right," said Teta, still with a little pique to find herself forestalled;" and you, to be sure, knew best, and could tell him most; but, blessed Santa Theresa! how had you the courage? —I was afraid."

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"But then I am not so clever as you are, amore mia," said Mariuccia, deprecatingly: "I did not think what would happen. I said it out of my unfortunate head, the Madonna forgive me; and to think now that it was all for nothing, and that all he has gained is harder work and a troubled heart. For to be sure he has no money for a great suit at law. Thou wouldest have thought of that, my Teta, if I had consulted with thee!"

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Money!" cried Teta, with a gesture of disdain-" then that is all! But what said he to the news? I am glad he knows, for my part. It is true that very few people know Francisco, but everybody seems to have learnt that there is some one at Rome who belongs to the Agostini family. There is Gaetano, for example. Gaetano came home last week on the day of All Souls, Mariuccia

mia. He is with a great English lord, and is going to Naples by-and-by; and what should Gaetano hear at his master's table where he was serving, but one of the Signori Forestieri talking of Donna Anna, and of some story of another heir who was lost. Gaetano knows nothing, to be sure, but he told it to me; and I desired him, Whatever thou hearest, amico mio, about the house of Agostini, tell it always to me'-and you would not believe, Mariuccia, how much I have heard since. And so you told him-benissimo! but what did our youth say?"

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He asked me a great many things," said Mariuccia, with despondency, "but stopped when he remembered that there was no money. And there is no money, Teta, my beautiful! And do you suppose the Duchessa will yield, or Donna Anna give it all up to him? Madonna Santissima! to think that for want of a little money so handsome a young man should be kept out of his inheritance. Though Gigi would mortgage the vineyard and the garden, and even the little house, and I myself take my necklace to the Monte, if that were but half enough."

"Patienza!" said Teta, nodding her head; "have thou courage, my friend. Let this rumour spread, and who can tell what friends the blessed Madonna may call to him? There is the great English Milord down in the first piano; he has no one with him but his granddaughter, a pretty little piccola piccola Signorina. I have spoken to her now and then. See, Mariuccia, she is of this height, and her waist I could hold in my hand-a puff of wind off Monte Cavo would blow her away-and yet she has come travelling one cannot tell how many thousand miles. I have spoken of Francisco, and he is painting the little Signorina's portrait. The old Milord is very jealous of her, and will not let the child out of his sight; but trust her to talk with her eyes to our Francisco! I will tell the little one he is a prince in disguise. The Forestieri like it, Mariuccia mia: they think we Italians live as in an opera, these Signori Inglese. The Madonna and the blessed saints send we did! for a stab of

a stiletto would not matter by times, if the olives always yielded and the vines had no blight. Is the vintage good with you in Rocca, Mariuccia? How the times are changing! One could get good wine the other day for two bajocchi the fogliett, and now it is five; and how much more it will be before all is done, who can tell?"

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Ah, Teta mia, the times of Gregory! these were the times!" said Mariuccia-" when no man troubled his head about anything but his vines and his olives, and wine was as plentiful as water, and the oil like honey; but in these days the Madonna alone knows what is coming to us. No one fasts; there is no respect to religion; the priest passes like the beggar, and no man salutes him. When religion fails, everything fails; the candles burn few on the altars, Teta mia, and the little panetti are a bajocco apiece."

"True enough about the panetti," said the better-instructed Roman matron, with a toss of her head; "but as for the preti, bah! One cannot go through the street without stumbling over a monk here and a priest there. You should hear what Gaetano says. In England there are no festas but Sundays; think of that, my friend! and one can get one's work done all the days of the week without help of St Martino and St Michele. There is that woman of mine, that Maria, she would go to mass every morning, and to Pincio every afternoon, if I was fool enough. She knows every festa a month off, and would I keep her from the holy function on the blessed San Martino's day? Holy Santa Theresa! the work must be done in spite of all the saints."

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Hush, hush, my beautiful. The Madonna forgive thee, Teta; wouldst thou speak a word against the Holy Saints?" said Mariuccia, in pious horror.

"They are very well in their own way," said the unscrupulous Teta. "I myself sent a candle as long as my arm to the shrine of my blessed patroness Santa Theresa, when Gaetano was last away, and I hope it pleased her. But why my chambers should stand unswept while that wo

man Maria goes to mass on the festa, tell me, Mariuccia? Do you suppose Santa Theresa cares whether that creature goes to mass, or loves to see the broom standing in the corner? Bah! I am for the Holy Lord Jesu and the Madonna Immaculata. I do not believe so very much, I can tell you, in either the priests or the saints."

Mariuccia gave a little gasp, in the manner of one who would say a great deal, but swallows it in painful selfdenial and says nothing, and gave a most emphatic shake of her head. "Thy mother thinks otherwise, Teta," she said, compassionately; "and see the Duchessa."

"Ah, yes, yes, see the Duchessa !" cried Teta, with a burst of laughter. How devout she is! She fasts twice a-week, and gives tithes of all she has," continued this heretical critic, unconsciously adopting the words of Scripture," and fears God, thinkest thou not, Mariuccia mia? Ah, what a good mother she has been to her son!"

"Teta, Teta, hold thy peace; some one will hear thee," cried Mariuccia, rising hastily to close the window, which overlooked the courtyard, a little square space, sinking deep, a well of air, in the centre of the tall house, and galleried round with

other balconies beneath that of Teta, where any one listening might indeed have heard the Roman woman's unsubdued voice.

"Is it to Donna Anna, then, the Duchessa has been so good a mother?" said Teta, scornfully,"keeping her inheritance so safe for her, that the heiress never sets foot within the palace of the Agostini either at Genzaro or in Rome ?-or to him whom she sent away under thy shawl, Mariuccia?-but patienza! I had rather do my duty to my children than love the saints: I had rather help Francisco to his right than have three masses a-day. Yes, she is very devout, the good Duchessa, and such a mother to her son!"

Mariuccia made no answer; she was discomfited, and had nothing to reply, and indeed felt herself under great doubt for the moment, whether to defend the cause of religion in the person of the Duchessa, or to abandon that perplexing subject for the more personal one of Francisco. After a while she decided prudently on the latter course, and the two women were deep in the discussion of this important and difficult matter, when the young Francisco himself, whom curiosity and excitement had driven from his easel, entered the house.

VOL. LXXXVIII.-NO. DXXXIX.

Y

GREAT WITS, MAD WITS?
"Great wits to madness nearly are allied."

FROM the days of Aristotle, and probably long before his time, there has been a tacit, and often expressed, belief that, somehow or other, men of genius were mad, or if not positively mad, they were of the temperament which easily leads to madness. The very fact of their superiority seemed to imply a departure from healthy equilibrium. Obviously unlike ordinary men, it was easy to conclude that this unlikeness originated in insanity they were looked upon as "men inspired" or madmen; some times both. This notion was further strengthened by certain resemblances observed in men of genius and madmen in both there was a similar excitability and intensity of excitement; in both a strangeness and remoteness from ordinary ideas and habits; in both a singularly reliant conviction of the truth and practicability of ideas and projects which to others seemed wildly chimerical: so that not only have madmen sometimes passed for men of genius, and men of genius have been thought insane, but with all our experience we often find it impossible to decide whether an entirely novel plan be the conception of far-seeing genius, or the vision of a diseased brain. The irritability and eccentricity often noticed in illustrious men have been regarded as indications of incipient insanity. In some notorious cases insanity has actually declared itself -as in Tasso, among poets; Newton, among philosophers; and Peter the Great, among statesmen.

So long as this idea of a necessary connection between aberration of mind and greatness of mind remained a vague and half-believed proposition, which might fill out a verse or close an epigram, there was no necessity for any serious refutation of it; but the moment it is reduced to precision, and is taken as the thesis

of a scientific volume, by a man not wholly without the respect due to an important position, we are called upon to scrutinise it closely. That moment has arrived. M. Moreau, physician to the Lunatic Asylum Hospice de Bicêtre), and author of known works on cognate subjects, has recently issued a large volume,* setting forth, as the result of many years' study, the proposition that genius is due to nervous disease, being only another form of that abnormal condition of the nervous centres, which elsewhere manifests itself as epilepsy, monomania, or idiocy. He has no hesitation in declaring that "the physiological history of idiots is, in a multitude of particulars, the same as that of the majority of men of genius, and vice versa." His arguments and illustrations are thus summed up: "It appears sufficiently established that the pre-eminence of the intellectual faculties has for its organic condition a special state of disease of the

nervous centres."

If this were a mere paradox, it should be handled with more finesse and skill than M. Moreau can command. If it has to be regarded as a scientific truth, a contribution to our psychology, every experienced reader will quickly perceive that M. Moreau wants the requisite ability to treat it properly. The very laxity of his ambitious title shows a deplorable vagueness in his use of terms. There is no more about the "philosophy of history" in his work, than there is about international law. He is a poor writer, and worse reasoner. If we notice his book at all, it is for the sake of inducing our readers to come to a definite conclusion respecting the vague half-belief which has so long been tolerated respecting men of genius. And that we may the more completely extricate this subject from the ambiguities

*La Psychologie Morbide, dans ses rapports avec la Philosophie de l'Histoire, ou de l'Influence des Névropathies sur le Dynamisme Intellectuel. Par le Docteur J. MOREAU (de Tours). 1859.

clustering round the word Genius, so variously and so laxly used by various writers, we shall throughout employ the word as expressive of intellectual pre-eminence-an energy of the intellectual faculties surpassing that of ordinary men.

At the outset we may assume it to be admitted, by all, that these faculties are among the functions of the nervous system; and that their energy must necessarily be dependent on the organic condition of that system. By "organic condition" is meant the more or less perfect structure, and more or less healthy activity of the system. The vital energy of a man is dependent on the organic condition of his body; and his mental energy is in like manner dependent on the organic condition of the nervous system. An undeveloped brain will act less vigorously, less efficiently, than one fully developed; a diseased brain will act less coherently than one in health. It is indisputable that any hindrance to the nervous mechanism, arising from congestion, anæmia, lesion, or poison, must be a hindrance to its functions. If a piano is out of tune, we know that the strings are slackened. If a man's thoughts are incoherent, we know that there is somewhere-not primarily, perhaps, in the brain-a disturbing cause, which affects the nervous mechanism.

But in admitting that intellectual energy depends upon the nervous mechanism, and that all the forms of insanity are referrible to organic conditions of that system, we cannot for an instant admit that genius and insanity issue from similar organic conditions; we cannot admit that the strength and energy of the mind are referrible to the same causes as its weakness and incoherence. To suppose that Shakespeare was nearly akin to an inhabitant of Hanwell is about as reasonable as to consider the Benicia Boy and Tom Sayers pathological cases. The energy of genius is strength, not disease. It may, "like vaulting ambition, o'erleap itself." The intellect may be overtasked, and succumb; but so likewise may the athlete overtask his strength, and come home with a broken back.

M. Moreau argues thus :-Genius is owing to an unusual activity of the nervous centres; insanity is also owing to an unusual activity of these centres. But he might as well argue that a spasm is identical with strength, as argue that the activity of insanity is identical with that of genius. We are almost ashamed of asking a physician, and one devoted to the subject of alienation, whether he imagines that any amount of excitation would raise the brain of an ordinary man to the potency of a Shakespeare. Is original constitution nothing? and will not the healthy activity of a great mind surpass the delirious energy of a common mind? M. Moreau knows well enough that the excitability of some idiots greatly exceeds that of the most illustrious men; and this knowledge should enable him to see that genius must depend on quite other conditions than those of mere excitability. Instead of this, he argues that because idiots are excitable, therefore they have similar organic conditions to those which produce genius. Not so.

The difference lies in the organic conditions. The nervous mechanism is more complex and more developed in the one case than in the other; and, being so, its activity is unlike that of the other.

A reference to the lives of illustrious men would be the first resource of the inquirer; accordingly, M. Moreau has gathered together some sixty pages of biographical details to prove his hypothesis. This array of illustrious names will probably impose upon the careless reader; the more so as M. Moreau does not pretend that all men of genius are actually mad, but only that their genius is founded on a diseased organic condition of the nervous system, similar to that observed in idiots and madmen. The purpose of this biographical array is to show that men of genius have been temporarily insane, or subject to hallucinations; and when this has not been the case in the men themselves, it has been observed in their relatives. If a man of pre-eminent ability comes from a family in which one or more cases of epilepsy, hallucination, melancholy,

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