Note 447 — Chapter I · Characteristics of Insane Men of Genius.
Reading edition
“Mad Nat Lee,” who was for a long time an inmate of Bedlam, minutely describes the insanity of genius in his poems; e.g., in Cæsar Borgia:—
“Like a poor lunatic that makes his moan, And, for a while, beguiles his lookers-on, He reasons well. His eyes their wildness lose, He vows his keepers his wronged sense abuse, But if you hit the cause that hurts his brain, Then his teeth gnash, he foams, he shakes his chain.”
See Winslow, Obscure Diseases of the Brain, p. 210, London, 1863. See also the chapter “On the Art of Insanity,” for proofs of a like tendency on the part of insane painters.