He had, from the irritability of his constitution, at all times, an impatience and hurry when he either read or wrote. A certain apprehension, arising from novelty, made him write his first exercise at College twice over[1]; but he never took that trouble with any other composition; and we shall see that his most excellent works were struck off at a heat, with rapid exertion[2].
Yet he appears, from his early notes or memorandums in my possession, to have at various times attempted, or at least planned, a methodical course of study, according to computation, of which he was all his life fond, as it fixed his
- ↑ See Post, June 15, 1784. Mr. Windham (Diary, p. 17) records the following 'anecdote of Johnson's first declamation at college; having neglected to write it till the morning of his being (sic) to repeat it, and having only one copy, he got part of it by heart while he was walking into the hall, and the rest he supplied as well as he could extempore.' Mrs. Piozzi, recording the same anecdote, says that 'having given the copy into the hand of the tutor who stood to receive it as he passed, he was obliged to begin by chance, and continue on how he could. . . . "A prodigious risk, however," said some one. "Not at all," exclaims Johnson, "no man, I suppose, leaps at once into deep water who does not know how to swim."' Piozzi's Anec. p. 30.
- ↑ He told Dr. Burney that he never wrote any of his works that were printed, twice over. Dr. Burney's wonder at seeing several pages of his Lives of the Poets, in Manuscript, with scarce a blot or erasure, drew this observation from him. Malone. 'He wrote forty-eight of the printed octavo pages of the Life of Savage at a sitting (Post, Feb. 1744), and a hundred lines of the Vanity of Human Wishes in a day (Post, under Feb. 15, 1766). The Ramblers were written in haste as the moment pressed, without even being read over by him before they were printed' (Post, beginning of 1750). In the second edition, however, he made corrections. 'He composed Rasselas in the evenings of one week' (Post, under January 1759). 'The False Alarm was written between eight o'clock on Wednesday night and twelve o'clock on Thursday night.' Piozzi's Anec. p. 41. 'The Patriot,' he says, 'was called for on Friday, was written on Saturday' (Post, Nov. 26, 1774).
firmness of memory which enabled him to read with incredible rapidity, and at the same time to retain what he read, so as to be able to recollect and apply it. He turned over volumes in an instant, and selected what was useful for his purpose.' Johnson's Works, vi. 390.
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