of mental echo of the original bliss of composition. I will set
about writing immediately.

Having, time out of mind, heard the epithet _great_ coupled with
Historians, it was that, I believe, inclined me to write a history.
I chose my subject, and began collating, and transcribing, night and
day, as if I had not another hour to live; and on I went with the
industry of a steam-engine; when it one day occurred to me, that,
though I had been laboring for months, I had not yet had occasion for
one original thought. Pshaw! said I, 't is only making new clothes out
of old ones. I will have nothing more to do with history.

As it is natural for a mind suddenly disgusted with mechanic toil to
seek relief from its opposite, it can easily be imagined that my next
resource was Poetry. Every one rhymes now-a-days, and so can I. Shall
I write an Epic, or a Tragedy, or a Metrical Romance? Epics are out of
fashion; even Homer and Virgil would hardly be read in our time, but
that people are unwilling to admit their schooling to have been thrown
away. As to Tragedy, I am a modern, and it is a settled thing that no
modern _can_ write a tragedy; so I must not attempt that. Then
for Metrical Romances,--why, they are now manufactured; and, as the
Edinburgh Review says, may be "imported" by us "in bales." I will bind
myself to no particular class, but give free play to my imagination.
With this resolution I went to bed, as one going to be inspired. The
morning came; I ate my breakfast, threw up the window, and placed
myself in my elbow-chair before it. An hour passed, and nothing
occurred to me. But this I ascribed to a fit of laughter that seized
me, at seeing a duck made drunk by eating rum-cherries. I turned my
back on the window. Another hour followed, then another, and another:
I was still as far from poetry as ever; every object about me seemed
bent against my abstraction; the card-racks fascinating me like
serpents, and compelling me to read, as if I would get them by heart,
"Dr. Joblin," "Mr. Cumberback," "Mr. Milton Bull," &c. &c. I took up
my pen, drew a sheet of paper from my writing-desk, and fixed my eyes
upon that;--'t was all in vain; I saw nothing on it but the watermark,
_D. Ames_. I laid down the pen, closed my eyes, and threw my
head back in the chair. "Are you waiting to be shaved, Sir?" said
a familiar voice. I started up, and overturned my servant. "No,
blockhead!"--"I am waiting to be inspired";--but this I added
m