Heredity : a psychological study of its phenomena, laws, causes and consequences / from the French of Th. Ribot.

  • Ribot, Th. (Théodule), 1839-1916.
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Heredity : a psychological study of its phenomena, laws, causes and consequences / from the French of Th. Ribot. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    LIST OF POETS. Alfieri, Anacreon, Ariosto, Aristophanes, Burns, Byron, Calderon, Camoens, Chaucer, Ch^nier, Coleridge, Corneille, CowPER, Dante, Dryden, ^schylus, Euripides, Goethe, Goldoni, Gray, Heine, Horace, Hugo, Juvenal, La Fontaine, Lamartine, Lucan, Lucretius, Metastasio, Milton, Musset, Moliere, Moore, Ovid, Petrarch, Plautus, Pope, Racine, Sappho, Schiller, Shakspere, Shelley, Sophocles, Southey, Spencer, Tasso, Terence, Tennyson, Lope de Vega, Virgil, Wordsworth. It will be observed that in this list, from which no poet of eminence is intentionally omitted, some might have been excepted whose genealogies are quite unknown—Sappho, Terence, and others, who left no family. In this way we reach the conclusion that upwards of twenty out of fifty poets (or forty per cent.) had illustrious relatives. We give some details on this point:— Ariosto, while yet a child, wrote comedies. In his family we find— His brother Gabriel, a poet of some distinction, who, after Lodovico's death, finished the comedy o{ La Scholastica; His nephew Horace, Tasso's intimate friend, author of the Argiimenti, and other works. Aristophanes. The talent of this famous comic poet is found in a minor degree in His son Araros, author of five comedies, among which we may name the ' Kokalos ' and the ' Ai'losihon;' Another son, Nicostratos, who wrote fifteen comedies; Perhaps also another son, Philippos. Burns appears to have inherited from his mother that excessive sensibility which made him one of the first poets of Britain. Byron. His genealogy is interesting. His mother was an eccentric, haughty, passionate woman, and half insane. Hence a certain English author has said that ' if ever there was a case wherein hereditary influences could be pleaded as an excuse for eccentricity of character and conduct, that case was Byron's.' He was descended of a line of ancestors in whom, on both sides, was to be found everything that could destroy the harmony of character, as well as all peace and individual happiness.