which the most admired is his _Elementa philosophiae moralis stoicae_ (Mayence, 1606). CHAPTER VIII. POETRY. Adrian Beverland--Cecco d'Ascoli--George Buchanan--Nicodemus Frischlin--Clement Marot--Caspar Weiser--John Williams--Deforges--Théophile--Helot--Matteo Palmieri--La Grange--Pierre Petit--Voltaire--Montgomery--Keats--Joseph Ritson. The haunters of Parnassus and the wearers of the laurel crown have usually been loved by their fellows, save only when satire has mingled with their song and filled their victims' minds with thoughts of vengeance. In the last chapter we have noticed some examples of satirical writers who have clothed their libellous thoughts in verse, and suffered in consequence. But the woes of poets, caused by those who listened to their song, have not been numerous. Shakespeare classes together "the lunatic, the lover, and the poet" as being "of imagination all compact"; and perchance the poet has shared with the madman the reverence which in some countries is bestowed on the latter. However, all have not so escaped the destinies of fate. Some think that Ovid incurred the wrath of Augustus Caesar through his verses on the art of loving, and was on that account driven into exile, which he mourned so melodiously and complained of so querulously. In a period less remote we find Adrian Beverland wandering away from the true realm of poetry and taking up his abode in the pesthouse of immorality. He was born at Middlebourg in 1653, and studied letters at the University of Leyden. He began his career by publishing indecent poems. He wrote a very iniquitous book, _De Peccato originali_, in which he gave a very base explanation of the sin of our first parents; and although considerable licence was allowed to authors in the Netherlands at that time, nevertheless the magistrates and professors of Leyden condemned the book to be burned and its author to banishment. The full title of the work is _Hadriani Beverlandi peccatum originale philogicé elucubratum, à Themidis alumno. Eleutheropoli, in horto Hesperidum, typis Adami, Evae, Terrae filii_ (1678, in-8). He seems to have followed Henri Cornelius Agrippa in his idea that the sin of our first parents arose from sexual desire. Leonard Ryssenius refuted the work in his _Justa detestatio libelli sceleratissimi Hadriani Beverlandi, de Peccato originali_ (1680). He would doubtless have incurred a harder fate on account of another immoral work, entitled _De prostibulis veterum_, if one of his relations had not charitably committed it to the flames. Before the sentence of banishment had been pronounced he wrote an apology, professed penitence, and was allowed to remain at Utrecht, where he composed several pamphlets. Being exiled on account of the indecency of his writings, he came to England, where he affected decorum, and his friend and countryman Isaac Vossius, who enjoyed the patronage of Charles II. and was Canon of Windsor, obtained for him a pension charged