supped, and, after a pipe of tobacco and a glass of water, went to bed."

Next to the Bible, Homer was his first tutor. He knew his writings almost by heart. The beauties of Isaiah, Homer, Plato, and Euripides divided his studious hours with the composition of his great Epic. His daughters acquired the Hebrew and Greek languages in order to read them to him. It is singular that the master poets of ancient and modern times should have been alike blind.

He

Martin Luther's literary labors were enormous; during an interval of less than thirty years, he published seven hundred and fifteen volumes; some were pamphlets, but most were large and elaborate treatises. necessarily employed amanuenses for these works, but if his translation of the Bible had been his only production, it would have been considered, under his peculiar circumstances, a gigantic task, even had he devoted to it a lifetime.

Luther, when studying, always had his dog lying at his feet, a dog he had brought from Wartburg, and of which he was very fond. An ivory crucifix stood on the table before him, and the walls of his study were stuck round with caricatures of the Pope. He worked at his desk for days together without going out, but when fatigued, and the ideas began to stagnate in his brain, he would take his flute or his guitar with him into the porch, and there execute some musical fantasy (for he was a skillful musician), when the ideas would flow upon him as fresh as after summer's rain. Music was his invariable solace at such times. Indeed,

Luther did not hesitate to say that, after theology, music was the first of arts. "Music," said he, "is the art of the prophets; it is the only other art which, like theology, can calm the agitation of the soul, and put the devil to flight." Next to music, if not before it, Luther loved children and flowers. That great, gnarled man had a heart as tender as a wo

man's.

"The Messiah' of Handel-that amazing fruit of a few weeks' inspiration, was dashed on paper, as its companion and predecessor had been. This greatest musical work in existence, the highest in argument, the most pompous in structure, and the most equally sustained from the first note to the final 'amen,' was appreciated by its maker as his own best creation-a bequest to all who love the highest religious art, forever." ""*

Tradition affirms that Handel wept and trembled, when the subject which he improvised was moving or awful.

Handel, being questioned as to his ideas and feelings when composing the "Halleluiah" chorus, replied, in his imperfect English: "I did think I did see all heaven before me, and the great God himself." When he was composing, his excitement would rise to such a pitch, that he would burst into tears. It is said that a friend, calling upon the great musician when in the act of setting these pathetic words: "He was despised and rejected of men," found him absolutely sobbing. "I have heard it related," says Shield, "that when

* Edinburgh Review.

Handel's servant used to bring him his chocolate in the morning, he often stood in silent astonishment to see his master's tears mixing with the ink, as he penned his divine notes." The motion of his pen, rapid as it was, could not keep up with the rapidity of his conception. His MSS. were written with such impetuosity, that they are difficult to read. The mechanical power of the hand was not sufficient for the current of ideas which flowed through that volcanic brain.

Thus much for the domestic illustrations of authorship. We have already referred to the pains and pleasures of the pen in a previous volume.

Johnson preferred conversation to books; but when driven to the refuge of reading by being left alone, he then attached himself to that amusement. By his innumerable quotations, one would suppose that he must have read more books than any man in England; but he declared that supposition was a mistake in his favor. He owned he had hardly read a book through. Churchill used to say, having heard, perhaps, of his confession, as a boast, that "if Johnson had only read a few books, he could not be the author of his own works." His opinion, however, was that he who reads most has the chance of knowing most; but he declared that the perpetual task of reading was as bad as the slavery in the mine, or the labor at the oar.

Burton, the author of the "Anatomy of Melancholy," was extremely facetious in conversation; and the most ascetic poet of our own day, Lord Byron, was one of the most brilliant and humorous of associates when he mingled with the world.

That singular writer, Robert Burton, is said, by Anthony Wood, to have composed his "Anatomy" in order to divert his own "melancholy." So great was the demand for this book, when first published, that the bookseller is said to have acquired an estate by it. In the intervals of his vapors, he was the most facetious companion in the university. When he felt a depression coming upon him, he used to relieve his melancholy by going to the foot of the bridge, and listening to the coarse ribaldry of the bargemen, which seldom failed to throw him into a fit of laughter.

"The Comforts of Human Life," by R. Heron, were written in a prison, under the most distressing circumstances. "The Miseries of Human Life," by Beresford, were, on the contrary, composed in a drawing-room, where the author was surrounded by all the good things of this world. A striking contrast will often be found to exist between authors and their works, melancholy writers being usually the most jocular and lively in society, and humorists in theory the most lugubrious of animals in practice.

These

A man of letters is often a man with two natures: one a book nature, the other a human nature. two often clash sadly.

Homer had such instinctive aversion to music, that it is reported he could not be prevailed upon even to walk along the banks of a murmuring brook; yet tradition also asserts that he sung his own ballads.

Seneca wrote in praise of poverty, on a table formed of solid gold, with millions let out at usury.

Sterne was a very selfish man; yet, as a writer,

excelled in pathos and charity. At one time beating his wife, at another, wasting his sympathies over a dead donkey.

Sallust, who so eloquently declaims against the licentiousness of the age, was repeatedly accused in the senate of public and habitual debaucheries.

Steele wrote excellently on temperance, when he was sober.

Johnson's essays on politeness were admirable; yet his "You lie, sir!" and "You don't understand the question, sir!" were the common characteristics of his colloquies.

Young, whose gloomy fancy cast such sombre tinges on life, was in society a brisk, lively man, continually pelting his hearers with puerile puns. Mrs. Carter, fresh from the stern, dark grandeur of the "Night Thoughts," expressed her amazement at his flippancy. 66 Madame," said he, "there is much difference between writing and talking."

The same poet's favorite theme was the nothingness ́of worldly things; his favorite pursuit was rank and riches. Had Mrs. Carter noticed this incongruity, he might have added: "Madam, there is much difference between writing didactic poems, and living didactic poems."

Bacon, the most comprehensive and forward-looking of modern intellects, and in feeling one of the most benevolent, was meanly and contemptibly ambitious of place; and while teaching morals, we find him taking bribes.

More, in his "Utopia," declares that no man ought