cupied him thirty years: generally
every period was translated in the margin five or six different ways.
Chapelain and Conrart, who took the pains to review this work
critically, were many times perplexed in their choice of passages; they
generally liked best that which had been first composed. Hume had never
done with corrections; every edition varies from the preceding ones. But
there are more fortunate and fluid minds than these. Voltaire tells us
of Fenelon's Telemachus, that the amiable author composed it in his
retirement, in the short period of three months. Fenelon had, before
this, formed his style, and his mind overflowed with all the spirit of
the ancients. He opened a copious fountain, and there were not ten
erasures in the original MS. The same facility accompanied Gibbon after
the experience of his first volume; and the same copious readiness
attended Adam Smith, who dictated to his amanuensis, while he walked
about his study.

The ancients were as pertinacious in their corrections. Isocrates, it is
said, was employed for ten years on one of his works, and to appear
natural studied with the most refined art. After a labour of eleven
years, Virgil pronounced his AEneid imperfect. Dio Cassius devoted twelve
years to the composition of his history, and Diodorus Siculus, thirty.

There is a middle between velocity and torpidity; the Italians say, it
is not necessary to be a stag, but we ought not to be a tortoise.

Many ingenious expedients are not to be contemned in literary labours.
The critical advice,

To choose an _author_ as we would a _friend_,

is very useful to young writers. The finest geniuses have always
affectionately attached themselves to some particular author of
congenial disposition. Pope, in his version of Homer, kept a constant
eye on his master Dryden; Corneille's favourite authors were the
brilliant Tacitus, the heroic Livy, and the lofty Lucan: the influence
of their characters may be traced in his best tragedies. The great
Clarendon, when employed in writing his history, read over very
carefully Tacitus and Livy, to give dignity to his style; Tacitus did
not surpass him in his portraits, though Clarendon never equalled Livy
in his narrative.

The mode of literary composition adopted by that admirable student Sir
William Jones, is well deserving our attention. After having fixed on
his subjects, he always added the _model_ of the composition; and thus
boldly wrestled with the