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386 a comedy, either on a subject given to him, or on one he drew from his fertile imagination: he selected the performers from among those who were assembled, and happily suggested to each of these actors and actresses, what was best adapted to his extemporaneous drama. He engaged with men of genius and talents, in the composition of verses answering to each other in succession (carmina amoebæa), and constantly obtained the superiority and triumph. Mythology supplied him with ornaments, history offered to him a store of subjects, the sciences endowed him with mental illumination, and he profited by the whole to display his inexhaustible facility. He played on various instruments: his common mode of versifying Was to touch a guitar, and at the close of the day, to recapitulate all that he had done, said, treated, disputed, and discussed, without omitting any of the circumstances, which he constantly realized with grace and ingenuity, and preserved, in the intervening personages, their language and character. On this account, there was not any fashionable assemblage, any festival, banquet, rejoicing, or meeting, to which he was not invited and earnestly solicited.

The following case of mania, although it may not be singular in its kind, is interesting, inasmuch as it presents an additional beacon to those who, in attempting to accomplish that which is impracticable, incur the risk of an alienation of their reason.

Don Diego Lopez, a native of Pontevedra in Gallicia, resided many years in Lima, and died there at an advanced age. He possessed more than a common share of mathematical knowledge; and having heard that the Paris Academy of Sciences offered a considerable premium to him who should discover,