I
must have bodily exercise," he said, "and therefore never let a day pass
without it." His walk was usually in the afternoon.

Lord Byron, who used to sit up at night writing "Don Juan," (which he
did under the influence of gin and water,) rose late in the morning.
Leigh Hunt thus describes him: "He breakfasted, read, lounged about,
singing an air, generally out of Rossini, and in a swaggering style,
though in a voice at once small and veiled; then took a bath and was
dressed, and coming down stairs, was heard, still singing, in the
court-yard, out of which the garden ascended at the back of the house.
The servants at the same time brought out two or three chairs. We then
lounged about, or sat and talked. In the course of an hour or two, being
an early riser, I used to go in to dinner. Lord Byron either stayed a
little longer, or went up stairs to his books and his couch. When the
heat of the day declined we rode out, either on horseback or in a
barouche, generally towards the forest. He was a good rider, graceful,
and kept a firm seat. In the evening I seldom saw him. He recreated
himself in the balcony, or with a book; and at night, when I went to
bed, he was just thinking of setting to work with 'Don Juan.' His
favorite reading was history and travels. His favorite authors were
Bayle and Gibbon. His favorite recreation was boating." Byron had
prodigious facility of composition. He was fond of suppers, and in
London, after supping at Rogers's and eating heartily, he would go home
and throw off sixty or eighty verses, which he would send to press the
next morning.

Goldsmith's desultory habits are quite characteristic. Irving says: "It
was his custom during the summer-time, when pressed by a multiplicity of
literary jobs, or urged to the accomplishment of some particular task,
to take country lodgings a few miles from town, generally on the Harrow
or Edgeware road, and bury himself there for weeks and months together.
Sometimes he would remain closely occupied in his room, at other times
he would stroll out along the lanes and hedgerows, and, taking out paper
and pencil, note down thoughts to be expanded and corrected at home."
Though he engaged to board with the family, his meals were generally
sent to him in his room, in which he passed the most of his time,
negligently dressed, with his shirt-collar open, busily engaged in
writing. Sometimes, probably when in moods of composition, he would
wander into the kitchen