capacity for severe stretches of labour. They may be artists, writers,
men of business, mechanicians--anything; but in nearly every case some
special faculty of brain is developed to an extraordinary degree, and
the man is able to put forth the most strenuous exertions at a pinch.
Let us name some typical examples. Turner was a man of phenomenal
industry, but at intervals his temperament craved for some excitement
more violent and distracting than any that he could get from the steady
strain of daily work. He used to go away to Wapping, and spend weeks in
the filthiest debauch with the lowest characters in London. None of his
companions guessed who he was; they only knew that he had more money
than they had, and that he behaved in a more bestial manner than any of
those who frequented the "Fox under the Hill" and other pleasing
hostelries. Turner pursued his reckless career, till his money was gone,
and then he returned to his gruesome den and proceeded to turn out
artistic prodigies until the fit came upon him once more. Benvenuto
Cellini was subject to similar paroxysms, during which he behaved like a
maniac. Our own novelist Bulwer Lytton disappeared at times, and plunged
into the wildest excesses among wretches whom he would have loathed
when he was in his normal state of mind. He used to dress himself as a
navvy, or as a sailor, and no one would have recognized the weird
intellectual face when the great writer was clad in rags, and when the
brutal mask of intoxication had fallen over his face. It was during his
recovery from one of these terrible visitations that he drove the woman
whom he most loved from his house, and brought on that breach which
resulted in irreparable misery. Poor George Morland, the painter, had
wild spells of debauch, during which he spent his time in boxing-saloons
among ruffianly prize-fighters and jockeys. His vice grew upon him, his
mad fits became more and more frequent, and at last his exquisite work
could be produced only when his nerve was temporarily steadied by
copious doses of brandy. Keats, who "worshipped Beauty," was afflicted