Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 April 1894 — MISERIES OF THE GREAT. [ARTICLE]

MISERIES OF THE GREAT.

Annoyances, Physical and Otherwise, that Made Genius Groan. Nero had bulging eyes and was very near-sighted. De Foe had more than one dose of Newgate and the pillory. Spenser, the poet, suffered the extremes of poverty and neglect. Cowper was all his days overshadowed by the gloom of insanity. ’ Julius Ctesar had weak digestion and was subject to epileptic fits. Cervantes was always poor and constantly annoyed by bls creditors? Milton was blind in his old age and often lacked in comforts of llfe.i Peter the Great was half crazy' most of his life, through drink and rage. Mohammed was an epileptic, and his visions were those of a diseased, mind. Gibbon had the gout. He became so stout that he could not dress himself. Bacon was avaricious, and his greed for money finally led, to his disgrace. Tasso was miserably poor most of his days. His miseries finally drove him mad. Selden was once committed to, prison for his attacks on the divine right of kings. Palestrina lived in extreme poverty most of his days, and finally died in great want Charlemagne bad an ulcer in his leg that gave him much annoyance for many years. Johnson was near-sighted and his face much disfigured by scars resultr ing from scrofula. Coke was quarrelsome, and passed, his life in almost continual war with' his associates. Byron was club-footed, and th& fact was a source of constant misery to him all his life. Dante passed most of his life as an exile from the only city in which he cared to live.