Shakespeare classes together "the lunatic, the lover,
and the poet" as being "of imagination all compact"; and perchance the
poet has shared with the madman the reverence which in some countries is
bestowed on the latter.
However, all have not so escaped the destinies of fate. Some think that
Ovid incurred the wrath of Augustus Caesar through his verses on the art
of loving, and was on that account driven into exile, which he mourned so
melodiously and complained of so querulously. In a period less remote we
find Adrian Beverland wandering away from the true realm of poetry and
taking up his abode in the pesthouse of immorality. He was born at
Middlebourg in 1653, and studied letters at the University of Leyden. He
began his career by publishing indecent poems. He wrote a very iniquitous
book, _De Peccato originali_, in which he gave a very base explanation of
the sin of our first parents; and although considerable licence was
allowed to authors in the Netherlands at that time, nevertheless the
magistrates and professors of Leyden condemned the book to be burned and
its author to banishment. The full title of the work is _Hadriani
Beverlandi peccatum originale philogice elucubratum, a Themidis alumno.
Eleutheropoli, in horto Hesperidum, typis Adami, Evae, Terrae filii_
(1678, in-8). He seems to have followed Henri Cornelius Agrippa in his
idea that the sin of our first parents arose from sexual desire.
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