Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1881-11-17
Some Nhims OF Authors.


Carneades, the philosopher, seldom
wrote without dosing himsef with helle-
bore --schylns, Eupolis, Cratinus.
Ennius are said never TO have sat down
to compose till they were intoxicated.
Dryden often had himself bled, and, like
| Fusell, ate raw meat to assist, he said
| his imagination. Shadwell, De Ouin-
cey, Psalmanaazar, Dean Miner. Col
er1dge, and Bishop Horsley, stimulated
themselves with opium, as De Musset
was helpless without absinthe. GRAY
seldom sat down to compose without
first reading through some cantos of the
"Faery Queen" Corneille fired him
self with the pursual of 'Ilucan." Black
stone never wrote without bottle of
port wine IN his desk, nor Schiller with
out flask of Rhenish within call. When
his imagination was sluggish he would
sit with his feet in hot water. drinking
coffee ito thaw the frost on his wits. ="
Montague was never happy without his
cat, and with his pen in his right hand
while his left was smoothing the glossy
back OF his favorite tabby, meditated his
Essays" Boxborne, the great Dutch
scholar, could never write a word with
out pipe in his mouth, and as he pre-
ferred long pipe and yet required
the use OF both hands he bethoug1It him
of avery ingenious device. He had hat
with an enormous brim, which impend-
ed IN front of his face; through this he
made hole to support his pipe thus Sc
curing the double advantage of shading
his eyes and enjoying without inconven.
fence his favorite luxury, and in this wav
he produced his voluminous and yalua-
BILE writings. Hobbies had the same
weakness, ''ten or twelve pipes with a
candle" being his invariabie concomit-
ants at the desk, and DR.. Parr was not
less dependent on tobacco. Southey
could never write lire except at his
desk, with his books round him and with
familiar objects near by. Milton could,
he said, never compose anything to his
satisfaction except between the vernal
and autumnal equinox. At those sea-
sons his poetry came like an inspiration.
At other times, III spite of the most
strenuous efforts, he would be unable to
bring to the birth single verse. Thorn
son, Collins, and Gray had the same SUI
prostitution about themselves. John
son, with his usual bluff common sense.
rldlcules such fancies, and calls them
unworthy of any sensible mantle good
doctors theory being that man who
had the power of writing always could
write IF he set himself doggedly to it."
William Prynne, the voluminous author
of the "Histriomastrix, was nothing
without long quilted cap which came
an inch over his eyes," Button was help
less without a spotless shirt and starched
frlll. Still stranger were the whims of
Graham, the author of "'rhe Sabbath"
and Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, who,
If we are to believe De Quincy, found
eirta vein never ran happily unless they
sat down to their tasks with boots and
spurs on. An eminent modern novelist
finds his pen and imagination powerless
u.nrs ssaSiss he sits surrounded by lighted
Walpole tells us that Lord Orrery found
no stimulus SO efficacious as sharp fit
of the govt. The great Dutch scholar,
Isaak Vossius, and our own poet, John
Philips, would employ servant to
comb their hair while they mediate their
works. Coleridge told Hazlitt that when
engaged in composition he never found
bis vein so happy as when he was walk
ing over uneven ground, or making his
way through a coppice with the twigs
brushing his face. Wordsworth, on the
other hand, preferred straight gravel
walk where he could wander mechani-
cally and without any impediment to
and fro; in this way almost all his latter
poems were composed. Lord Bacon had
a fancy for inkaling the fumes of bottle
of claret poured out on earth which had
been newly upturned