onounced by
Christopher North to be "equal to anything of the kind in Burns," than
for the fact that his verses--some of them, too, of a serious
character--were thought out amidst the bustle and turmoil of factory
labor, the din of the clanking steam-engine, and the deafening rattle of
machinery, while the work of committing them to paper was generally
performed amidst the squalling and clamor of children around the hearth,
now in the noise of fractious contention, and anon exuberant with fun
and frolic.

Tannahill, too, composed while plying the shuttle,--humming over the
airs to which he meant to adapt new words; and, as the words occurred to
him, jotting them down at a rude desk which he had attached to his loom,
and which he could use without rising from his seat. But no more
noteworthy example of the pursuit of authorship under difficulties--the
difficulties of a narrow home--_res augusta domi_--is probably on
record, in its simple, homely way, than that of Jean Paul, as Doering
pictures him, sitting in a corner of the room in which the household
work was being carried on--he at his plain writing-desk, with few or no
books about him, but merely with a drawer or two containing excerpts and
manuscripts; the jingle and clatter that arose from the simultaneous
operations at stove and dresser no more seeming to disturb him than did
the cooing of the pigeons which fluttered to and fro in the chamber, at
their own sweet will.

Dr. Johnson delved at his dictionary in a poor lodging-house in London,
with a cat purring near, and orange peel and tea at hand.

Moliere tested the comic power of his plays by reading them to an old
servant.

Dr. William E. Channing used to perambulate the room while composing;
his printers report that he made many revisions of the proof of his
writings, so that before the words met the eyes of the public on the
printed page the sentences were finished with the most elaborate
minuteness.

Bloomfield, the poet, relates of himself that nearly one-half of his
poem, "The Farmer's Boy," was composed without writing a word of it,
while he was at work, with other shoemakers, in a garret.

Sharon Turner, author of the valuable "History of the Anglo-Saxons," who
received a pension of $1,500 from the British government for his
services to literature, wrote the third volume of "The Sacred History of
the World" upon paper that did not cost him a farthing. The copy
consisted of torn and angular fragmen