employed rather in perfecting, than in forming works. His muse is compared to a fine woman in the pangs of delivery. He exulted in this tardiness, and, after finishing a poem of one hundred verses, or a discourse of ten pages, he used to say he ought to repose for ten years. Balzac, the first writer in French prose who gave majesty and harmony to a period, it is said, did not grudge to bestow a week on a page, and was never satisfied with his first thoughts. Our "costive" Gray entertained the same notion: and it is hard to say if it arose from the sterility of their genius, or their sensibility of taste.

It is curious to observe, that the MSS. of Tasso, which are still preserved, are illegible from the vast number of their corrections. I have given a fac-simile, as correct as it is possible to conceive, of one page of Pope's мs. Homer, as a specimen of his continual corrections and critical rasures. The celebrated Madame Dacier never could satisfy herself in translating Homer: continually retouching the version, even in its happiest passages. There were several parts which she translated in six or seven manners; and she frequently noted in the margin-I have not yet done it.

When Paschal became warm in his celebrated controversy, he applied himself with incredible labour to the composition of his "Provincial

Letters." He was frequently twenty days occupied on a single letter. He recommenced some above seven and eight times, and by this means obtained that perfection which has made his work, as Voltaire says, 66 one of the best books ever published in France."

The Quintus Curtius of Vaugelas occupied him 30 years; generally every period was translated in the margin five or six several ways. Chapelain and Conrart, who took the pains to review this work critically, were many times perplexed in their choice of passages; they generally liked best that which had been first composed. Hume was never done with corrections; every edition varies with the preceding ones. But there are more fortunate and fluent minds than these. Voltaire tells us of Fenelon's Telemachus, that the amiable author composed it in his retirement in the short period of three months. Fenelon had, before this, formed his style, and his mind overflowed with all the spirit of the ancients. He opened a copious fountain, and there were not ten erasures in the original мs. The same facility accompanied Gibbon after the experience of his first volume; and the same copious readiness attended Adam Smith, who dictated to his amanuensis, while he walked about his study.

The ancients were as pertinacious in their cor

rections. Isocrates, it is said, was employed for ten years on one of his works, and to appear natural studied with the most refined art. After a labour of eleven years, Virgil pronounced his Æneid imperfect. Dio Cassius devoted twelve years to the composition of his history, and Diodorus Siculus, thirty.

There is a middle between velocity and torpidity; the Italians say, it is not necessary to be a stag, but we ought not to be a tortoise.

Many ingenious expedients are not to be contemned in literary labours. The critical advice a friend,"

"To choose an author, as we would a

is very useful to young writers. The finest geniuses have always affectionately attached themselves to some particular author of congenial disposition. Pope, in his version of Homer, kept a constant eye on his master Dryden; Corneille's favourite authors were the brilliant Tacitus, the heroic Livy, and the lofty Lucan: the influence of their characters may be traced in his best tragedies. The great Clarendon, when employed in writing his history, read over very carefully Tacitus and Livy, to give dignity to his style, as he writes in a letter. Tacitus did not surpass him in his portraits, though Clarendon never equalled Livy in his narrative.

The mode of literary composition adopted by that admirable student Sir William Jones is well deserving our attention. After having fixed on his subjects, he always added the model of the composition; and thus boldly wrestled with the great authors of antiquity. On board the frigate which was carrying him to India, he projected the following works, and noted them in this

manner:

1. Elements of the Laws of England.

Model The Essay on Bailments. ARISTOTLE. 2. The History of the American War.

Model-THUCYDIDES and POLYBIUS.

3. Britain Discovered, an Epic Poem. Machinery-Hindu Gods. Model-HOMER.

4. Speeches, Political and Forensic.

Model-DEMOSTHENES.

5. Dialogues, Philosophical and Historical. Model-PLATO.

And of favourite authors there are also favourite works, which we love to be familiarized with. Bartholinus has a dissertation on reading books, in which he points out the superior performances of different writers. Of St. Augustine, his city of God; of Hippocrates, Coacæ Prænotiones; of Cicero, de Officiis; of Aristotle, De Animalibus; of Catullus, Coma Berenices; of Virgil, the sixth book of the Æneid, &c. Such judgments are

indeed not to be our guides; but such a mode of reading is useful to contract our studies within due limits.

Evelyn, who has written treatises on several subjects, was occupied for years on them. His manner of arranging his materials and his mode of composition appear excellent. Having chosen a subject, he analyzed it into its various parts, under certain heads, or titles, to be filled up at leisure. Under these heads he set down his own thoughts as they occurred, occasionally inserting whatever was useful from his reading. When his collections were thus formed, he digested his own thoughts regularly, and strengthened them by authorities from ancient and modern authors, or alleged his reasons for dissenting from them. His collections in time became voluminous, but he then exercised that judgment which the formers of such collections usually are deficient in. With Hesiod he knew that "Half is better than the whole," and it was his aim to express the quintessence of his reading; but not to give it in a crude state to the world; and when his treatises were sent to the press, they were not half the size of his collections.

Thus also Winkelman, in his " History of Art," an extensive work, was long lost in settling on a plan; like artists, who make random sketches of