he
completed his first sketch of "Lochiel."

Nor is this capriciousness exclusively the attribute of the poetic Muse.

Calvin, who studied and wrote in bed, if he felt his facility of
composition quitting him, as not unfrequently he did, gave up writing
and composing, and went about his out-door duties for days, weeks, and
months together. But as soon as he felt the inspiration again, he went
back to his bed, and his secretary set to work forthwith.

Dr. Edward Robinson was always under the necessity of waiting upon his
moods in composition. He wondered at the men who can write when they
will. Sometimes for days together he could make no headway in his higher
tasks.

There are avocations, like those of the advocate, the preacher, the
journalist, which must be pursued continuously, well or ill, and in
spite of such variations of feeling. In these labors men doubtless learn
to disregard in some degree these moods of mind; but the variable
quality of the productions of one man on different days confirms what
testimony we have of their existence.

The zeal or the indifference, the clearness or the dulness, the
quickness or the sluggishness of thought, are doubtless to some degree
determined by the methods of labor into which the person falls, and by
the incidental habits and circumstances of his life. It is wonderful
what a vast fund of information and suggestion upon these and kindred
points of mental phenomena is found in the experience of the great
industrial class of the intellectual world recorded in biographical and
historical literature. Let us then visit some of the busiest and most
successful scholars, philosophers, poets, writers, and preachers; let us
peep through the window of biography into the library, the cabinet, and
the office. Let us watch the habits of some of these busy-brained men,
these great masters of the intellectual world. Let us note what helps
and what hindrances they have found; how they have driven their work, or
how they have been driven by it, and what is the nature and degree of
the systems which they have adopted in ordering their hours of labor and
of relaxation.

We will visit them as we find them, without looking for examples of
excellence or warnings of carelessness, and will leave the reader to
make his own inferences.

The poet Southey, who is said to have been, perhaps, more continually
employed than any other writer of his generation, was habitually an
early riser, but he n