My Dear Philo,--In the reign of Lysimachus, {17} we are told that
the people of Abdera were seized with a violent epidemical fever,
which raged through the whole city, continuing for seven days, at
the expiration of which a copious discharge of blood from the
nostrils in some, and in others a profuse sweat, carried it off. It
was attended, however, with a very ridiculous circumstance: every
one of the persons affected by it being suddenly taken with a fit of
tragedising, spouting iambics, and roaring out most furiously,
particularly the Andromeda {18a} of Euripides, and the speech of
Perseus, which they recited in most lamentable accents. The city
swarmed with these pale seventh-day patients, who, with loud voices,
were perpetually bawling out--

"O tyrant love, o'er gods and men supreme," etc.

And this they continued every day for a long time, till winter and
the cold weather coming on put an end to their delirium. For this
disorder they seem, in my opinion, indebted to Archelaus, a
tragedian at that time in high estimation, who, in the middle of
summer, at the very hottest season {18b} of the year, exhibited the
Andromeda, which had such an effect on the spectators that several
of them, as soon as they rose up from it, fell insensibly into the
tragedising vein; the Andromeda naturally occurring to their
memories, and Perseus, with his Medusa, still hovering round them.

Now if, as they say, one may compare great things with small, this
Abderian disorder seems to have seized on many of our literati of
the present age; not that it sets them on acting tragedies (for the
folly would not be so great in repeating other people's verses,
especially if they were good ones), but ever since the war was begun