ed a pipe and drank a
glass of water, he retired. Yet in the midst of this clock-like
regularity his labors were broken by frequent unfruitful seasons.
Symmons says of him, that "he frequently composed in the night, when his
unpremeditated verse would sometimes flow in a torrent, tinder the
impulse, as it were, of some strange poetical fury; and in these
peculiar moments of inspiration, his amanuensis, who was generally his
daughter, was summoned by the bell to arrest the verses as they came,
and to commit them to the security of writing.... Some days would elapse
undistinguished by a verse, while on others he would dictate thirty or
forty lines.... Labor would often be ineffectual to obtain what often
would be gratuitously offered to him; and his imagination, which at one
instant would refuse a flower to his most strenuous cultivation, would
at another time shoot up into spontaneous and abundant vegetation." He
seldom wrote any in the summer.

Cowper said that _he_ composed best in winter, because then he could
find nothing else to do but think; and he contrasted himself in this
respect with other poets, who have found an inspiration in the
attractive scenes of the more genial seasons.

The biographer of Campbell has given us the following anecdote with
respect to the oft-quoted lines,

"'T is the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before."

The happy thought first presented itself to his mind during a visit at
Minto. He had gone early to bed, and, still meditating on "Lochiel's
Warning," fell fast asleep. During the night he suddenly awoke,
repeating, "Events to come cast their shadows before"! This was the very
thought for which he had been hunting the whole week. He rang the bell
more than once with increasing force. At last, surprised and annoyed by
so unseasonable a peal, the servant appeared. The poet was sitting with
one foot in the bed, and the other on the floor, with an air of mixed
impatience and inspiration. "Sir, are you ill?" inquired the servant.
"Ill! never better in my life. Leave me the candle, and oblige me with a
cup of tea as soon as possible." He then started to his feet, seized
hold of his pen, and wrote down the happy thought, but as he wrote
changed the words "events to come" into "coming events," as it now
stands in the text. Looking at his watch he observed that it was two
o'clock, the right hour for a poet's dream; and over his cup of tea