In origin, the device of ‘illeism’ is a joint legacy to Elizabethan drama of the native English medieval stage tradition and of the Senecan translations, and one already used before [William] Shakespeare by [Thomas] Kyd, [George] Peele, and [Christopher] Marlowe. Also, this ‘illeism’ was a mannerism of the historical Julius Caesar as in evidence in his Commentaries; […]

Sometimes this throat uttered Yes, sometimes it uttered No; sometimes it made inquiries about a time worn denizen of the place. Once it surprised her notions by remarking upon the friendliness and geniality written in the faces of the hills around.

Ephori of Sparta, hearing a dissolute liver propose a very beneficial advise unto the people, commaunded him to hold his peace, and desired an honest man to assume the invention of it unto himselfe and to propound it.

Now just as normal perceptions in terms of sense organs different from those stimulated can be interpreted through common past experiences, so it is likely that synæsthesias may be partly explicable in terms of individual experiences.