Many of them, though fewer than among the mattoids, mingle drawing with poetry, as though neither art by itself were sufficient for the impetus of their ideas. Their style lacks the polish which comes of much elaboration, but abounds in incisive and vigorous sentences, so that it often equals, and even surpasses, the productions of calmer and more refined art. _Passion._--This should not cause surprise any more than the tendency to versification in individuals who, before losing their reason, were ignorant of prosody, when it is remembered that poetry--as Byron well said and demonstrated in his own person--is the expression of passion under excitement, and grows in vigour and effectiveness as the excitement increases. That rhythm can relieve and express abnormal psychic excitement much better than prose can be deduced from the poetic inspirations of drunkards, as well as from the spontaneous affirmations of insane poets. “_Je vous-écris en vers, n’en soyez point choqué,_ _En prose je ne sais exprimer ma pensée_,” an insane criminal wrote to Arboux, clearly explaining this tendency.[299] A lunatic at Pesaro gave this reason for some of his verses: “Poetry is a spontaneous emanation from the mind--poetry is the cry of the soul pierced by a thousand griefs.”[300] _Atavism._--Vico had already guessed, and Buckle, at a later date, has admirably explained that, among primitive peoples, all thinkers and sages were poets. In fact, the earliest histories were put into a fixed form and handed down by the bards of Gaul, or by the Toolkolos of Tibet; likewise in America,[301] the Deccan,[302] Africa,[303] and Oceania.[304] Ellis writes that the Polynesians have recourse to their ballads as to historical documents when any question arises regarding the deeds of their ancestors. And as in ancient India, so also in mediæval Europe, the sciences were explained in verse. Montucla speaks of a mathematical treatise of the thirteenth century written in verse; an Englishman versified the Institutes of Justinian, and a Pole wrote a rhyming work on heraldry. History, properly so called, though written in prose was in the Middle Ages no less fabulous and full of fantastic absurdities and puns than poetry. Troyes was derived from Troy, Nuremberg from Nero, the Saracens from Sara; Mahomet was a cardinal; Naples was built on a foundation of eggs; after certain victories of the Turks there were children born with 22 or 23 instead of 32 teeth. Turpin, the Macaulay of those times, relates in his chronicle that the walls of Pampeluna fell as soon as the followers of Charlemagne had begun to pray. Ferrante was 20 cubits in height, and had a face a cubit in length. In short, the history of those days was the same as the fairy tales still told at rustic firesides, from which we can gather nothing but the uniform quality of human imbecility which becomes more fantastic the more ignorant it is.