Page:In Spite of Epilepsy, Woods, 1913.djvu/203

 CHAPTER XXII

Cæsar and Mohammed, Byron's epilepsy was at first psychic, perhaps only emotional, petit, but in time it developed into grand mal, responding by convulsions,—clonic and tonic spasms,—to certain sensations or impressions. Such, it would seem, was the attack he had upon seeing the tragedian Edmund Keene act the character of Sir Giles Overreach in Massinger's "A New Way to Pay Old Debts."

It was a first night after prolonged preparation. The house was filled with the elite of London. Every branch of polite and elegant society was present; literature, art, and fashion occupied the boxes, and crowded the chief seats. Preliminary announcements had filled the public mind with great expectations. The time at last came, the orchestra subsided into silence, the curtain rose, the drama began. So intense was the suspense of the audience during its progress, so dreadful was the realism of the actor in his characterization of the irascible and turbulent Sir Giles, that many of his auditors were violently affected by it. The Duke of Wellington fainted. Leigh Hunt, "an old stager," who was there in the capacity of dramatic critic, was completely overcome. Many prominent persons went 191