Byron, Shelley, Keats, Mrs. Browning, Rossetti, all publish their
ill-health through their verse. Even Browning, in whose verse, if
anywhere, one would expect to find the virile poet, shows Sordello
turned to poetry by the fact of his physical weakness.[Footnote: So
nearly ubiquitous has ill-health been among modern poets, that Max
Nordau, in his widely read indictment of art, _Degeneration_, was
able to make out a plausible case for his theory that genius is a
disease which is always accompanied by physical stigmata.]

Obviously, if certain invalids possess a short-cut to their souls, as
Birge Harrison suggests, the nature of their complaint must be
significant. A jumping toothache would hardly be an advantage to a
sufferer in turning his thoughts to poesy. Since verse writers recoil
from the suggestion that dyspepsia is the name of their complaint, let
us ask them to explain its real character to us. To take one of our
earliest examples, what is the malady of William Lisles Bowles' poet, of
whom we learn,

Too long had sickness left her pining trace
With slow still touch on each decaying grace;
Untimely sorrow marked his thoughtful mien;
Despair upon his languid smile was seen.
[Footnote: _Monody on Henry Headley_.]

We can never know. But with Shelley, it becomes evident that
tuberculosis is the typical poet's complaint. Shelley was convinced that
he himself was destined to die of it. The irreverent Hogg records that
Shelley was also afraid of death from elephantiasis, [Footnote: T. J.
Hogg, _Life of Shelley_, p. 458.] but he keeps that affliction out
of his verse. So early as the composition of the _Revolt of Islam,_