Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 June 1882 — Great Writers at Wark. [ARTICLE]

Great Writers at Wark.

[Saa Francisco Port) How Dryden worked I cannot find re, corded; doubtless at any time an <1 all times w henever the need of money pressed him. Pope always required his writing desk to be set upon Ira bed before he rose. Gray, the author of the “Elegy,” was perhaps of all writers the most curiously minute in his method; it is said that he perfected each line separatly amending and rewriting it over and over again, and never commenced another until the first had wholly satisfied his fastidious taste. Byron sat down to write without any premeditation his ideas flowed with his ink, and one line suggested the next. But after the poem was completed, and during its passage through the press, he was continually altering, interlining and adding. The first copy of “The Giaour” conristed of only 400 lines; to each new edition were added new passages, until it swelled to nearlv 4,100 lines. During the printing of “’The Bride of Abydos” he added 200 lines, and many of the original were altered again and again. One of the most constantly laborious writers of whom we have any account was Southey. In one of his letters he says: “Imagine mein this great study of mine (at Gesta Hall Keswick,) from breakfast till dinner, fron dinner till tea, and from tea till supper, in my old black coat, my corduroys alternated with the long worsted pantaloons and gaiters in one, and the green shade, and sitting at my desk, and you have my picture and my histov. My actions are as regular as those of St. "Dunstan’s quarter bags. Three pages of history after breakfast then to transcribe and copy for press, or to make my selections and biographies, or what else suits my humor, till dinner time; from dinner till tea I read, write letters, see the newspapers, and very often indulge in a siesta. After tea I go to poetry, and correct and rewrite and copy till lam tired, and then turn to anything till supper, and this is my life, which, if it be not a merry one, is yet as happy as heart could wish.