and even English poetry, became dim to him; 'dir, dem Anbeter der
seligen Gottheiten der Musen, u.s.w.,' he wrote to Kelsall, 'was
Unterhaltendes kann der Liebhaber von Knochen, der fleissige Botaniker
und Phisiolog mittheilen?' In 1830 he was still hesitating between the
two alternatives. 'I sometimes wish,' he told the same friend, 'to
devote myself exclusively to the study of anatomy and physiology in
science, of languages, and dramatic poetry'; his pen had run away with
him; and his 'exclusive' devotion turned out to be a double one,
directed towards widely different ends. While he was still in this state
of mind, a new interest took possession of him--an interest which worked
havoc with his dreams of dramatic authorship and scientific research: he
became involved in the revolutionary movement which was at that time
beginning to agitate Europe. The details of his adventures are unhappily
lost to us, for we know nothing more of them than can be learnt from a
few scanty references in his rare letters to English friends; but it is
certain that the part he played was an active, and even a dangerous one.
He was turned out of Wuerzburg by 'that ingenious Jackanapes,' the King
of Bavaria; he was an intimate friend of Hegetschweiler, one of the
leaders of liberalism in Switzerland; and he was present in Zurich when
a body of six thousand peasants, 'half unarmed, and the other half armed
with scythes, dungforks and poles, entered the town and overturned the
liberal government.' In the tumult Hegetschweiler was killed, and
Beddoes was soon afterwards forced to fly the canton. During the
following years we catch glimpses of him, flitting mysteriously over
Germany and Switzerland, at Berlin, at Baden, at Giessen, a strange
solitary figure, with tangled hair and meerschaum pipe, scribbling
lampoons upon the King of Prussia, translating Grainger's _Spinal Cord_
into German, and Schoenlein's _Diseases of Europeans_ into English,
exploring Pilatus and the Titlis, evolving now and then some ghostly
lyric or some rabelaisian tale, or brooding over the scenes of his
'Gothic-styled tragedy,' wondering if it were worthless or inspired, and
giving it--as had been his wont for the last twenty years--just one more
touch before he sent it to the press. He appeared in England once or
twice, and in 1846 made a stay of several months, visiting the Procters
in London, and going down to Southampton to be with Kelsall once again.
Eccentricity had g