Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1881-04-14
The Fancies Of Authors.

From Temple Bar. E..E
Carnea'les. the philosopher. seldom
wrote without dosing himself with he'll
lebore. Eschylus, Eupolis. Cratinus
and Ennius are said never to have sat
down to compose till they were intoxi-
Gated. Dryden often had himself bled,
and, like Fuseli, ate raw meat to assist,
50 he said, his imagination. Shadwell,
De Quincy. Psalmanaazar, Dean Mil
Nner, Coleridge and Bishop Horsley, ,stim-
uiated themselves with opium. as De
Musset was helpless without absinthe.
Gray seldom sat down to compose with
out first reading through some cantos of
the Fairy Queen Corneille fired him
self with perasal of 'Lucan.' Blackstone
never wrote without a bottle of port
wine on his desk, nor Schiller without a
flask of Rnenish within call. When his
Imagination WAS sluggish he would sit
with his feet in hot water, drinking cof-
fee "to thaw the frost on his wits"
Montaigne was never happy without his
cat, and with the pen in his right hand
while the left was smoothing the glossy
back of his favorite tabby, meditated
his Essays. Boxhorne, the great Dutch
scholar, could never write word with
out IA pipe in his mouth, and as he pre-
ferred long pipe and yet required the
use of both hands, he bethought him of
an ingenious device. He had hat with
an enormous brim, which impended in
fr9nt of his face; through this he made
a hole to support his pipe, thus securing
the double advantage of shading his
eyes and enjoying without inconveni-
ence his favorite luxury, and in this
way he produced his voluminous and
valuable writings. Hobbies had the same
weakness, "ten or twelve pipes with a
candle" being his invariable concomi-
tants at the desk, and DIR. Parr was not
less dependent on tobacco. Southey
could never write line except at his
desk, with his books around him and
with familiar objects by.
Milton could, he said, never compose
anything to satisfaction except bstween
the Yernal and autumnal equinox. At
those seasons his poetry came like an
inspiration. At other times, in spite of
the most strenuous efforts, he would be
unable to bring to the birth a single
verse. Thompson, Collins and Gray had
the same superstition about themselves.
johnson, with his usual bluff common
sense, ridcules such fancies, and calls
them unworthy of any sensible man
the good Doctors theory being that a
man who had the power of writing al
ways could write 'if he set himself dog
gedly to it." CIabbe's fancies about
himself are so curious that we will quote
the passage in his sons biography of
him which bears on the subject; "He
fancied that autumn was on the whole
the most favorable season for him in the
composition of poetry, but there was
something in the effect of sudden fall
of snow that appeared to stimulate him
in a very extraordinary manner. 1t was
during great snow storm that, shut up
In his room, he wrote almost currente
calamo his Sir Eustace Grey Latterly
he worked chiefly at night after all the
r.. n,ilv he'd rotirad
William Prynne, the voluminous au-
thor of the 'Histriomastrix,' was moth
ing without long quilted cap which
came an inch over his eyes" Button
was helpless without a spotless shirt
and starched frill. Still stranger were
the whims of Graham, the author of The
Sabbath and Hogg, the Ettrick Shep-
herd, who, if we are to believe De Quin-
cey, found their vein never ran happily
unless they sat down to their tasks with
boots and spurs on. An eminent mod
ern novelist finds his pen and his i'm
agination powerless unless he sits sur
rounded by lighted candles in darken
ed room, and Horace Walpole tells US
that Lord Orrery found no stimulous so
efficacious as sharp fit of the gout. The
great Dutch scholar, Isaak Vossius, and
our own poet, John Philips, would en-
ploy servant to comb their hair, whilst
they meditated their works. Coleridge
told Hazlitt that when engaged in COM
position he never found his vein so hap
ply as when he was walking over uneven
ground or making his way through a
coppice with the twigs brushing his face.
Wordsworth, on the other hand, prefer
red straight gravel walk, where he
could wander mechanically and without
impeachment to and fro; in this way al
most all his later poems were composed.
Lord Bacon had fancy for inhaling the
fumes of bottle of claret poured on
earth which had been newly upturned.
GOVERNOR LEW WALLACE, who is
about to exchange his new home in New
Mexico for one in Paraguay, has just
given to newspaper correspondent a
flattering description of the Territory in
which he has lived for several years
past. In speaking of the mineral re-