Note 245 — CANTO THE FOURTH.

This is no very uncommon effect of the violence of conflicting and different passions. The Doge Francis Foscari, on his deposition in 1457, hearing the bells of St. Mark announce the election of his successor, "mourut subitement d'une hémorragie causée par une veine qui s'éclata dans sa poitrine" [see Sismondi, 1815, x. 46, and Daru, 1821, ii. 536; see, too, The Two Foscari, act v. sc. i, line 306, and Introduction to the Two Foscari, Poetical Works, 1901, v. 118, 193], at the age of eighty years, when "Who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him?" (Macbeth, act v. sc. 1, lines 34-36.) Before I was sixteen years of age I was witness to a melancholy instance of the same effect of mixed passions upon a young person, who, however, did not die in consequence, at that time, but fell a victim some years afterwards to a seizure of the same kind, arising from causes intimately connected with agitation of mind.